Posted inBlack Butte Ranch Home life

My new favorite jacket: John Aranda’s custom fleece

My wife, Laurel, and I love the Harvest Faire in Sisters, Oregon, an annual October delight that we've gone to for many years. When we co-owned a cabin in Camp Sherman we made sure to schedule the weekend of the Harvest Faire, and we're still doing this now that we co-own a house in nearby Black Butte Ranch. This year I went to the Harvest Faire on both Saturday and Sunday, while Laurel went only on Saturday. Good decision on my part, since walking by the booths today with our older dog, ZuZu, I took a longer look at John…
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Posted inFamily

AncestryDNA results have me speaking with a Lithuanian accent

After listening to countless (almost) ads for Ancestry.com on the radio, a few weeks ago I decided to take a plunge into the waters of my DNA. Well, let's make that watery spit, since my saliva is what got sent off for testing. I don't know what took me so long to learn what countries my recent ancestors likely came from. Procrastination, I guess, since my rather unusual family history seemingly would make me a natural for an AncestryDNA report. I know quite a bit about my mother's side of the family. I know almost nothing about my father's side,…
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Posted inHome life

Here’s what a 71 year old guy does on his birthday

I have an easy answer to the title of this blog post: almost exactly what I do on any other day. After all, I'm 71,  not seven. A birthday party of any sort was the farthest thing from my mind. I enjoy my usual Monday routine. So I followed it, with a few exceptions. Reading and meditation in the morning -- check. Grocery shopping in early afternoon-- check. Tai Chi class in late afternoon -- check. Dog walk in early evening -- check. The big surprise of my birthday came when I unlocked our mailbox. There it was, a birthday…
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Posted inBooks

Self-publishing, like me? Check out ebookpbook.

I've written four books. Three have been self-published. Or, to use the term Amazon has on my Break Free of Dogma listing, "independently published."  Last year I praised ebookpbook after this firm ably prepared for just $79 an electronic/Kindle version of a previous book I wrote. See: "If you're looking for a book design firm, I highly recommend ebookpbook." That book, God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder, cost a lot for the paperback interior and cover design. Wanting to support a local graphic design firm, I paid them $3,000. That may seem like a lot, but it was in line with what…
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Posted inHealth Marijuana

Not all vaping is dangerous. Vaping cannabis flower is safe.

I ingest THC and CBD by vaping every day. It's my substitute for a nightly glass of red wine, because I believe cannabis is more beneficial and safer than alcohol. So it bothers me when reports of vaping illnesses and deaths (including two here in Oregon) make it sound like all kinds of vaping should be given up. What appears to be dangerous is vaping e-cigarettes containing nicotine, and vaping THC cartridges that contain additives and oil. A Vox story today, "THC vape products appear to be the main culprit in the mysterious lung illness outbreak," says:  Investigators appear to…
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Posted inHome life

Wanted: Giant Mutant Squirrels to eat acorns (lots of them!)

In case the audio on my "Wanted" video isn't clearly recognizable by Giant Mutant Squirrels, and they're reading this blog post, I'm hoping they will pay a visit to our home to deal with the amazingly high number of acorns in our yard -- as documented in the video. More than we've ever seen. A bit of Googling taught me that oak trees go through regular cycles of many/few acorns, seemingly as an evolutionary adaptation. When there are lots of acorns, animals like squirrels can't eat them all, which leaves many acorns to become new oak trees. That's great for…
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Posted inBooks Home life

My book is a worst-seller. I’m fine with that.

I've written four books. My advice to people who want to ask an author, "How are your book sales going?," is the same advice I'd give to someone who wants to ask a woman how much she weighs. Don't do it! Unless the author is Stephen King. Or the woman is Claudia Schiffer. Five weeks ago I self-published my most recent book, Break Free of Dogma. (Amazon delicately calls it "Independently published," which does have a nicer ring to it.) Currently my book ranks #2,098,091 on the Amazon best-seller list.  At first glance that struck me as pretty damn low.…
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Posted inSalem Sustainability

Fairview Woods approved by Salem City Council

It was good to see the Salem City Council vote unanimously last night to reject an appeal of the 14.1 acre, 16 lot Fairview Woods development.  Eric Olsen of Olsen Design & Development has been working on this project for several years. The Woods currently is a heavily treed parcel at the top of the old Fairview Training Center property in south Salem. It's filled with ivy, blackberries, and trash left by homeless people and others. As Olsen discussed at the City Council hearing (I watched via the City of Salem's Facebook feed), The Woods was a difficult design challenge. …
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Posted inUncategorized

VW’s new electric ID3: appealing design and quirkiness

I'm already a big fan of the electric car VW revealed today at the Frankfurt auto show. Only problem, every report I've seen says that the ID3 won't be sold in the United States, because we Americans aren't big on smallish hatchbacks. (Since I drive a 2017 VW Golf GTI, and love my car, I'm an exception.) VW has done a great job with the design of the ID3. It honors the Golf heritage, while modernizing the look and feel of past VW vehicles.  A Motor 1 story, "VW ID.3 Debuts As People's Electric Car With Up To 342-Mile Range,"…
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Posted inSustainability

Earth to Politico: eating meat enlarges a person’s carbon footprint

Having been a strict vegetarian since 1970, I've enjoyed almost fifty years of dietary self-satisfaction. (Vegetarians aren't as smug as vegans, but we're close.) So when I saw a Politico headline today, "Democrats bite on burgers and straws -- and Republicans feast," I anticipated that the article was going to irritate me, which indeed it did. Politico engaged in some questionable analysis of the lengthy CNN climate forum featuring Democratic presidential candidates. Here's some burger-related observations. Democrats’ verbal targeting of everything from plastic straws to cheeseburgers is stoking fears among anti-Trump forces that they’re unwittingly playing into Republican culture wars.…
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Posted inHome life

VW’s ID4 Crozz could be my next (electric) car

I've been car window-shopping recently. OK, not via a window, really, but through the Internet. Just when I thought I'd hold onto my 2017 VW GTI for a while, until the next-generation Mk8 Golf/GTI comes to the United States in 2020 as a 2021 model, today I decided to take a closer look at VW's electric vehicles that will be introduced at the Frankfurt Auto Show this month. My new idea is that I could keep my GTI for longer trips, such as when I go to our co-owned Black Butte Ranch house in central Oregon. Then my wife and…
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Posted inHome life

Loving my 2017 VW GTI, I’m willing to wait for the eighth generation

A few weeks ago I wondered if I could find car love with a Hyundai Kona after dating a VW GTI. That question may have been answered by today's drive from Black Butte Ranch in central Oregon, across the Cascades, to our home in Salem. Driving on the often twisty and steep mountain roads reminded me how freaking fun the GTI is. Now, I readily admit that after a test drive with a 2019 Hyundai Kona, I can agree with this guy that the Kona arguably is a hot hatchback -- especially in comparison with its competitors, such as the…
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Posted inBlack Butte Ranch Family Home life

My first Pickleball experience was frustratingly fun

My daughter, Celeste, and I had overly optimistic expectations of how great we'd be at Pickleball. Since this racquet sport is sort of a cross between tennis and ping pong, both of which each of us has played a lot of, we figured that Pickleball would be a breeze for us. Well, we were partly correct.  It was a breezy day at the Pickleball courts at Black Butte Ranch in central Oregon, where Celeste, me, my granddaughter Evelyn, and Laurel, my wife, tried the sport for the first time. That enabled me to blame some of my many mistakes on…
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Posted inSalem

CarMax to open store in Salem in February 2020

I love CarMax. My wife and I have sold three of our cars there, getting a better price than was offered by local dealerships here in Salem, Oregon. So I got excited when someone told me that they'd seen a sign near the I-5 freeway saying that a CarMax store was coming to town. It's taken more than five years for this to happen since a February 2014 Statesman Journal story by Michael Rose was titled, "CarMax on the course toward Salem location." CarMax Inc., a giant in the used car business with 130 locations nationwide, has started laying the…
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Posted inHome life

Our 2018 Chevy Volt lost half its value in 16 months

Today we said goodbye to our third, and last, Chevy Volt. My wife has loved the car so much, we've leased three Volts: in 2012, 2015, and 2018.  It seemed like a good idea to lease, rather than buy, given the steady improvements in battery performance. (The Volt is a plug-in hybrid vehicle that switches over to a gas engine/generator after about 45-50 miles of all-electric driving.) But we didn't anticipate that we'd buy a 2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid to replace our 2014 Highlander -- which came to seem like too large a car for our tastes. Plus it had…
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Posted inBooks Home life

I’ve written a new book: “Break Free of Dogma”

It feels great to have my new book go live on Amazon. My views about life, spirituality, God, and other Big Ideas have changed a lot since I wrote my previous three books.  I still agree with much of what I said in them, but some parts make me sort of cringe. Break Free of Dogma is much closer to my current atheist philosophical perspective.  It consists of 93 posts that I selected from the early years of my Church of the Churchless blog, 2004-06. So it was pretty easy to fashion, since I'd already written most of the content. Just…
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Posted inEntertainment Home life

I hate DirecTV even more than I hate Trump

Let me explain the title of this blog post. Trump isn't sitting under our television, controlling what my wife and I are able to watch in our rural south Salem (Oregon) home where the only TV choices are crappy DirecTV and crappy Dish Network. So DirecTV has a much larger direct impact on my life than Donald Trump does. That's why I'm complaining about DirecTV rather than Trump, even though both are hugely irritating. There's always something to hate about DirecTV. Let me count three of the ways, starting with the most recent -- which is the biggest current reason…
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Posted inHome life

Can I find car-love with a Hyundai Kona after dating a VW GTI?

It feels like it could be time to break up with my 2017 VW GTI. We've had close to three years together. I love her a lot. Our only rough spot came when her moonroof started to rattle, and it took a really long time for a dealer to figure out what the problem was, and to fix it. Still, all of my car relationships come to an end. And I've been watching a lot of videos about what could be my next car-love, a 2020 Hyundai Kona. The 2019 model is fine, but there's a few features on my…
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Posted inSalem

Hood House will provide housing for five homeless Salem women

There's so much wrong going on in the world, it's refreshing to be able to report on something very much right. Russ and Delana Beaton, long-time advocates for the homeless here in Salem, Oregon, have created an innovative housing opportunity for five previously homeless women. The Beatons are members of a monthly discussion group that my wife and I belong to, so we've been kept up to date on the progress of their Hood House -- named for the street it sits on in northeast Salem. Here's how Hood House was described by Delana in an emailed invite to last…
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