Posted inHome life

Today someone told me they are going to kill themselves

It's a first. And not a pleasant first. About three hours ago I got an email from someone I've never met, but who I've communicated with via email about topics on one of my blogs.  He said he's decided to kill himself. He told me that he wasn't sure why he was writing me, but he wanted to thank me for sharing his ideas and participating in some interesting discussions. Early on in our correspondence this person told me that he has a genetic condition that leaves him in constant pain. He told me that his illness is getting worse,…
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Posted inHome life Humor

Behold! Laurel and Brian’s 2018 Christmas Letter

Once again, we defy the trends of the times by writing a Christmas letter that -- gasp! -- gets printed out and inserted into Christmas cards that are -- double gasp! -- mailed. Well, that "we" really means me, Brian. But after I cobble together a letter, Laurel reads it and has the opportunity to change it. This year she said, "Should we really talk about our health problems?"  To which I replied, sure. The problems are as much a part of our life as is our joy at the Democrats taking back the House in the midterms, which is…
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Posted inLiving with a catheter

Men’s “locker room talk” not conducive to openness about health problems

I had my annual physical today, Medicare variety, since I'm 70. I'm fortunate to have a family physician who is caring, compassionate, and willing to talk with me for as long as is necessary when I have a concern or question. Oh, the physician is also a woman. Which almost goes without saying from the description I just offered up. I'm not saying that male doctors always are businesslike and brusque. But most of the physicians of my sex I've gone to have been quite a bit less pleasant than my current family doctor. She and I talked about my…
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Posted inSalem

South Salem grocery store shopping carts rated

First off, please resist the temptation to think, This blogger guy has too much time on his hands. That thought denigrates the important subject of this post -- how I feel about the shopping carts at three stores in south Salem (Oregon version, not to be confused with the copycat Salem in Massachusetts; sure, the Massachusetts Salem came first historically, but we Oregonians consider ourselves superior to every other state because... well, just because). Yes, there are more important issues in the world. But I'm the designated weekly grocery shopper in our two-person household, our dog being incapable, or unwilling,…
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Posted inArcimoto

Arcimoto’s current financial situation: facts and my opinion

I'm an early Arcimoto backer with an early pre-order reservation number of #129. There's a lot that I like about the company's effort to design, manufacture, and sell an innovative electric three-wheeled motorcycle, which they call a FUV (Fun Utility Vehicle). But there's also a lot to be wary about. Notably, initial purchasers of the FUV have to make a bet on two things: (1) the quality of the final design of the FUV that will be used in retail sales (the design isn't finalized yet), and (2) the ability of Arcimoto, a start-up company, to stay in business through…
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Posted inSalem

Salem Weekly closes down. Sad day for our town.

Today, being a subscriber to Salem Weekly, I got a letter from our alternative newspaper that said the paper is being closed down, effectively immediately. I'll share my thoughts about this following the letter. Download Salem Weekly letter I feel a sense of loss, yet also thankfulness. A.P. Walther, who I assume wrote this letter, has been the tireless force that's kept Salem Weekly up and running since its birth in April 2003 as a monthly. Wikipedia describes the origins of the paper. I remember with fondness the Coffee House Cafe, a marvelously funky and welcoming place. The Salem Monthly traces…
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Posted inHealth

Shingrix gave my wife and I bad side effects. Still way better than shingles, though.

Getting shingles isn't fun, to put it mildly.  Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is a painful skin rash caused by reactivation of the varicella zoster virus (the same virus that causes chickenpox). ...Generally, people only develop shingles once, although it is possible to get shingles more than once. Shingles may lead to long-term complications such as debilitating pain that lasts for months or even years. In rare cases, serious, long-term eye or hearing issues can occur. My wife, Laurel, and I are 69 and 70, respectively. We'd gotten the original Shingles vaccine, Zostavax, but we wanted to get the new and…
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Posted inHealth

City Club talk about opioids both enlightening and disturbing

We're all addicted to something. Coffee. Video games. TV. Golf. Travel. Whatever. But usually our addictions aren't so intense as to wreck our lives. And rarely are they fatal. Opioids, though, are both addictive and highly dangerous. They can do good, when used correctly. They also do a lot of harm, when used incorrectly. Last Friday a Salem City Club talk, "The Opioid Epidemic: How We Got Here and the Way Forward," both fascinated me with facts I hadn't been aware of before, and depressed me with fairly familiar statistics about how opioids are ravaging our country.  Coelho and Holton…
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Posted inArcimoto

Be wary of Arcimoto’s new last-minute stock offering

In general I've been supportive of Arcimoto's attempt to design and market an electric three-wheeled motorcycle, which they call the FUV, Fun Utility Vehicle. It does indeed look like fun, but this doesn't take away from the fact that the company is on shaky financial ground. (You can see my previous posts about this effort by clicking on the Arcimoto category in the right sidebar. I have an early pre-order number of #129, so I've been following Arcimoto for quite a while.) But yesterday Arcimoto did something that strikes me as ethically dubious -- a new last-minute stock offering announced…
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Posted inTai Chi

Tai Chi actually is good for self-defense (just not against MMA fighters)

Recently TIME magazine had a story about how a Chinese MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter, Xu Xiaodong, beat up Wei Lei, a Kung Fu master in the discipline of Tai Chi, in about 10 seconds.  It doesn't take long to watch the thoroughly one-sided fight. Reading the story, "Meet the Chinese MMA Fighter Taking on the Grandmasters of Kung Fu," will require a lot more time. Nonetheless, about eleven years ago I wrote a blog post that I still stand by, "Tai Chi as a kick-ass martial art." I wrote that post after I'd been studying Tai Chi for three years,…
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Posted inArcimoto

Arcimoto owes prospective buyers answers to key questions

Arcimoto is a company based in Eugene, Oregon that has been working on the design and production of a three-wheeled electric motorcycle since its founding in November 2007. I plunked down a $100 pre-order deposit in October 2015, so I've got a low reservation number: #129. I'm still trying to decide whether to buy an Arcimoto. I like the concept -- a fun to drive electric motorcycle with two heated seats, a windshield, seat belts, rollover protection, and other options yet to be revealed by Arcimoto.  But I've got unanswered questions that, hopefully, will be answered by the time I…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Good news for Dems in my daughter’s Orange County report

Along with other progressives, I'm trying to tread a middle way between undue optimism and excessive pessimism regarding tomorrow's Super Duper Important midterm election.  But after getting a politically-oriented phone call this evening from my daughter Celeste, who lives in Orange County, California (Laguna Niguel, to be exact), I'm tilting more to the side of "Democrats could have a great day on Tuesday."  Celeste has been interested in politics, but until this year I wouldn't call her an activist. Tonight, though, she excitedly told me that last weekend she did her first-ever canvassing -- for Harley Rouda, a Democrat who…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Printers are the Achilles heel of personal computers

I love my MacBook Pro. Like most Apple products, almost all of the time it works great. I no longer fear major operating system upgrades, like I did when I was a Windows user many years ago.  The "blue screen of death" is an almost forgotten memory. I trust Apple software to do its thing without fuss or bother, and usually that trust is rewarded. But Apple stopped making its own printers decades ago. The apparent reason is that no one makes much money selling printers. The big bucks is in selling the cartridges needed to keep the printer functioning. Which…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Here’s Nate Silver’s predictions for key Oregon and national races

For political junkies like me, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.com web site is a treasure trove of election prediction delights. It's beautifully designed, statistically sophisticated, and a good way to learn statistical principles without actually taking a course. In this post I'm going to share how Silver looks upon some key House, Senate, and Governor races, naturally with a special focus on Oregon races. First, though, here's some tweets that Silver shared today: So the lean/likely zone for Nate Silver is between a 60%-95% chance of a candidate winning. And the toss-up zone is when no candidate exceeds a 60% chance of…
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Posted inBlack Butte Ranch Humor Recreation

My amazing Black Butte Ranch adventure

There are those who talk about doing great things. Then there are those who do great things. I'm pleased to be both "those's." I both do and talk. So after canine ZuZu and human Brian explored the far reaches of the mysterious land in the wilds of Black Butte Ranch known as Big Meadow, I was pleased to document our adventure -- just as (well, sort of as) Lewis and Clark chronicled their great journey of discovery. Behold, and click... 
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Posted inHome life Science Sustainability

Brown Oregon grass in October — climate change is very real

Yesterday I learned of a dire climate change report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Today I spread organic lawn fertilizer on parts of our rural yard where the grass is almost always greened up after fall rains. Not this year. And that's really weird.  I'm a creature of habit when it comes to fertilizing our yard. Twice a year, spring and fall, I spread organic fertilizer that I buy at Lowe's on both our shrubs/trees and our lawn. Some of the grass around our house is watered with a sprinkler system. Some isn't. We've lived on our…
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Posted inGrowing older

Regret and hope are luxuries for the young

I'm on the cusp of a decadal birthday. Tomorrow I'll be 70. So I've got just a few hours to say something wise about turning 70 before I'm actually there, and then can only talk about what's it's like to actually be so damn freaking old.  I came up with the title of this blog post yesterday, when I was musing about what, if anything, I've learned over these many years. In a bit of synchronicity, this morning I was reading Michael Pollan's book about psychedelics, "How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about…
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Posted inGrowing older Philosophy

Why I don’t like the term “new normal”

New normal is a term that's bandied about a lot, but to me it needs to be retired. Wikipedia says that new normal implies that something which was previously abnormal has become commonplace. OK. Makes sense. But I still don't like the term. For one thing, what the heck is "normal"? Often this word is used in a moralistic or judgmental sense that is much different from, say, a doctor informing a patient that her test results are normal -- meaning, within a typical range. Not long ago normal sex was considered to be between a man and a woman, not…
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Posted inHealth Home life

Deep thoughts on switching my breakfast to regular oats from quick oats

It's only been one day, but optimistic me is considering this to be a life-changing moment -- switching my breakfast cereal from microwaved quick oats to stovetop boiled regular oats.  Sure, I've meditated every morning since I was 20, and for most of those 49 years I figured that one day meditation would reveal, if not the Secret of the Universe, at least some mini-secrets of how my own mind works.  But with age comes a bit of realism. I've now lowered my sights on how deeply I'm going to be able to penetrate the mysteries that surround us. So…
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Posted inSports

Oregon Ducks football team throws my psyche in a tailspin…again

I've got a friend who doesn't watch college football games live, only recorded, because he gets so emotionally involved with wanting a team to win, his psychological health suffers. So when he knows the final score, he can watch the game with equanimity.  After being raised to a height of happiness during the first part of yesterday's Oregon - Stanford game, with Oregon leading 24-7 at halftime, bit by bit, mistake by mistake, the Ducks football team chipped away at my emotional high until I felt like shit when Stanford scored a touchdown in overtime and Oregon whiffed on four…
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