Posted inCurrent affairs

Hey, Congress, don’t take away my state and local tax deductions

These days the Republicans in Congress and the White House are adept at doing stuff that irritates my sense of fairness. But usually it doesn't directly affect me. Or at least, not much. For example, attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act upset me because of the horrendous impact this would have on millions of people who have insurance through Obamacare. Yet since I'm on Medicare, repeal wouldn't have meant much to me personally. The tax reform efforts that are making their way through the House and Senate committees are different, though. One thing that grabs my attention is the…
No Comments
Posted inEntertainment Salem

Next Fall is a great Enlightened Theatrics play. Go see it!

Main point of this review: There's five days left to see Enlightened Theatrics' current production, the play Next Fall. Get your tickets. Now. The last shows are Wednesday-Sunday, November 8-12. My wife and I loved Next Fall -- one of the most enjoyable plays we've ever seen. There's even a two-for-one ticket offer that likely still holds: Next Fall is about a gay couple who bicker, argue, make up, break apart, drive each other crazy, help each other be sane, cry, laugh, and otherwise display all the strengths and weaknesses of every other long-term committed couple, homosexual, heterosexual, whateversexual. Having…
1
Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

More misguided cougar and wolf hysteria strikes Oregon

Oh, my! Lock the doors and keep the children inside! A cougar may have killed a house cat in Seaside, Oregon. So all student activities at Seaside Elementary School were moved indoors.  Which is ridiculous, because while cougars may kill cats (so will dogs, of course, and much more often), a cougar has never killed a human in Oregon.  As I said in "Danger warning! -- people and dogs sighted in Salem park," what Seaside school authorities really should be concerned about are adult men and family dogs roaming around near the playground. I've done some research to quantify the…
No Comments
Posted inLiving with a catheter

Hope vs. Reality vs. Idiocy: my chronic condition conundrum

When my wife and I talked with an Oregon Health Sciences University urologist three weeks ago about my bladder/prostate problem, wanting to get a second opinion from Dr. Jonathan Witten, I told him that I was looking for a balance of Hope and Reality. Meaning, I explained to Witten, I was desirous of getting more hope for eventual recovery of my peeing ability than my local urologist, Dr. Mhoon, had offered up. But I also wanted to know the reality of what my prognosis was.  (For background on my urinary retention and weak bladder problem, which led to depression, see…
3
Posted inBooks Salem

Our town’s attractiveness, like perfection, is mostly in the mind

I wish life was perfect. It isn't. The Buddha taught this. Life is suffering. We're born, we grow old, we die. Our goal shouldn't be to try to eliminate suffering in a vain attempt to make life perfect, but rather to look upon things as they imperfectly are without unduly reacting to them with thoughts and feelings of  Ugh! So wrong! Horrible! Can't be! Likewise, the place where we live has to be accepted as a blend of positives and negatives that will forever dance together in an intertwined dance of opposites that both attract and repel. Take our current…
No Comments
Posted inHome life

Why are there so many kinds of windshield wiper arms?

I'm an atheist, but after spending way too much time today trying to figure out how to put new wiper blades on our cars -- each of which has a different kind of wiper -- a prayer to the Automotive Gods seems in order: Please put this thought in the mind of every car manufacturer CEO -- we shall all agree on one type of wiper arm for every car we make. I recommend that this be the J-hook type. It sure seems to be the simplest. Our 2014 Toyota Highlander has that type of wiper arm. I have no…
3
Posted inSalem Writing/Weblogs

Geronimo Tagatac’s wild wonderful whimsical visions of Salem

A local man with a great name fashions some marvelous creative writing on his Facebook page. I love these vignettes by Geronimo Tagatac, a really interesting guy. This is the Salem I want to live in.  And the great thing is, I already am. It just takes eyes like Tagatac's to see it. Here's his most recent "Salem." offerings. Geronimo Tagatac Salem. A woman made of wet leaves rustles into the espresso house, turning and flashing orange, yellow, red, lemon, and pale green. She carries the smell of tropical rain and visions of soundless animal silhouettes sliding through damp spaces…
3
Posted inHome life Recreation

Photos of Black Butte Ranch by bike and dog walk

Laurel, my wife, and I are the happy recent buyers of a 1/4 share in a Black Butte Ranch house. (Scroll down for a video of what the house looks like.) Today we went on a mid-afternoon bike ride around part of the resort property, then took the dog on a walk that started in Black Butte Ranch and ended on land outside the development.  Here's photos of our excursions. The house is located in the part of Black Butte Ranch that was developed first. So it dates from the 1970s. It's been updated, as you can see from the…
3
Posted inWeb/Tech

iOS 11.0.2 just froze my iPhone 8 plus. Here’s how to restart it.

Last night I dutifully updated my new iPhone 8 plus to iOS 11.0.2. This morning it froze up after I checked my weather app. No response to any touches. Of course, I can't be sure this was due to 11.0.2, since iOS 11.0.1 is causing problems. Regardless, I called Apple Support because i couldn't restart the phone. My previous phone was a 6 +. I guess I should have realized that the restart process might have changed over the past few years. So here's how you restart an 8 plus: (1) Press the up volume button on the left side(2)…
No Comments
Posted inHealth Home life

Everybody is hurting in some way. My compassion lesson 101.

I'm not the most compassionate guy. But ever since I started having some semi-serious health problems, and the depression that accompanied them, I've become quite a bit more understanding of what other people are struggling with in their daily lives. The Buddha said that life is suffering. He was right on.  Almost invariably, when I talk with someone about my physical and mental problems, the person I'm conversing with will bring up their own problems that I wasn't aware of before. Or mention what a near and dear one is going through.  Now, I realize that this isn't exactly groundbreaking…
No Comments
Posted inHome life Web/Tech

My changeover from iPhone 6s to 8 plus went smoothly. Thanks, Apple.

It's always scary for me to switch to a new iPhone. I think I've got post-traumatic Windows disorder, given my memories of encountering the "blue screen of death" when I tried to install a new version of that operating system during a time of my life I'm now ashamed of -- a few years when I stopped using an Apple computer because I (wrongly) thought it would be better to be part of the much wider Windows world than the much smaller Cult of Apple. Actually, almost always the changeover to a new iPhone has gone glitch-free for me. But…
No Comments
Posted inCurrent affairs Home life

Apple wanted a credit check via Equifax. I paid cash for an iPhone 8 instead.

Screw you, Apple. I love you dearly for the beautiful devices you make. I've owned lots of Apple computers, tablets, printers, and phones ever since the Apple II+ with a floppy drive came into my life way back when. But when I got to the very end of the ordering process for an iPhone 8 plus today, wanting to purchase it through the Apple financing program that I used to buy my iPhone 6 plus, I got a message that there was a problem with my credit. I was pretty sure that I understood what the problem was. When this…
3
Posted inHealth Living with a catheter

Too depressed to do anything else, I’ll write about my depression

It's a new experience, being depressed. Now, to be honest I haven't actually gotten a depression diagnosis. But my wife, Laurel, is a retired psychotherapist. And she tells me, "Brian, you aren't just tired. You're depressed." At first I didn't believe her. But Laurel gave me a Psychology Today article, "Depressed Without Knowing It," and that helped to change my mind.  I knew that several health problems had made me anxious, sad, worried, nervous about the future. I also was feeling a lack of energy, and was having trouble doing things that I used to enjoy. But since I'd never…
8
Posted inCurrent affairs Travel

Highway 20 fire closure on Santiam Pass raises arson suspicions

So many wildfires are burning in the Cascades and central Oregon. Today a fire started just south of Highway 20 in the Potato Hill area between the Santiam Junction (of highways 20 and 22) and the Hoodoo ski area.  Bend's KTVZ reports: A new wildfire prompted closure of U.S. Highway 20 west of Santiam Pass and a second closure near Suttle Lake Tuesday afternoon, hours after three new brushfires erupted around the Newberry National Volcanic Monument south of Bend, one prompting evacuations of Lava River Cave and the Lava Lands Visitor Center, authorities said.Willamette National Forest officials said the fire…
1
Posted inHome life Living with a catheter

My wife says I shouldn’t tell you this, but I am anyway

I usually do what my wife, Laurel, says. But this morning, after we talked about my health problem, I went to my laptop and wrote just the title to this blog post.  It's taken me all day to decide whether to do what the title says. Since I'm typing this now (8 pm), that's a pretty good sign that while I recognize the truth of what Laurel told me -- there are nasty people out there in social media who will make fun of you for being honest about your urinary problem -- as a long-time writer and blogger I…
3
Posted inHome life Living with a catheter

Given my peeing problem, be warned about asking “How are things going?”

Seems like it's time for me to come out of the closet. A medical problem closet. One that too many of us -- especially men -- keep ourselves in.  I've got a peeing problem. Now, this isn't unusual for men my age (I'm 68). I'd been taking several prostate medications that appeared to be working fairly well. But a few months ago a UTI, urinary tract infection, kicked me off into a state of hardly being able to pee at all rather than my previous state of having to pee too often. Urinary retention obviously isn't anything to ignore. I had…
3
Posted inCurrent affairs Science

Trump’s transgender policy is unscientific and unfair

A few days ago President Trump unleashed another ridiculous Twitter storm, this time about transgender people serving in the military. On Wednesday morning, Trump wrote on Twitter that “after consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.""Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail,” Trump added. “Thank you." Not surprisingly, these short sentences are filled with lies. …
1
Posted inHome life

After several hours, I’m burnt out on socializing. Could be a “guy thing.”

Here's a scenario that used to play out fairly frequently in my first marriage. Sue, my wife, and I would go out to socialize with some other couples -- for dinner and drinks, say. At that time I didn't drink alcohol. So I used to think that my inability to stay in a chit-chatty frame of mind could have been the result of me being the only non-imbiber in a group of people who grew more and more boisterous as the evening wore on, while I grew more detached. Driving home, my wife would say to me, "Brian, you looked…
1
Posted inHome life Humor

Men always will be second-class shopping citizens. Happily.

I'm married to a woman who likes to shop. This is, of course, a redundancy. If I had simply said I'm married to a woman,  the corollary who likes to shop is almost a logical necessity. By and large, men don't like to shop. There are exceptions, of course. Bob, my brother-in-law, would see a hardware store and make a bee-line to it with as much of a spring in his step as my wife, Laurel, does when she sees a "50% off everything" sign in the window of one of her favorite clothing stores. Me, I can happily spend hours…
2
Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

I don’t like the Fourth of July because I’m super-patriotic

Patriotism is way over-rated. At least, the way this word usually is defined makes it highly limiting: love for or devotion to one's country.  OK. I love the United States. I'm devoted to this country. I also love... My neighborhood, Spring Lake EstatesMy city, SalemMy county, MarionMy state, Oregon.My country, United States (as already mentioned)My continent, North AmericaMy planet, EarthMy galaxy, Milky WayMy universe, which let's call UniverseSo I'm super-patriotic. I love and am devoted to so much more than just my country. Celebrating Independence Day (today!) by focusing on the American flag, fireworks, nationalism, our military, the Founding Fathers (no…
No Comments