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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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. …
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Posted inSalem

Capitol City Cycleshare aims to get bike sharing going in Salem

Yesterday I met Evan Osborne fortuitously at a get-together in our neighborhood. I was walking our dog around the community lake. When I got to the picnic area Evan recognized me and we had a nice chat about the Capitol City Cycleshare he's working to get going.   His dog was with him, so ZuZu (our canine) and James got to meet each other and play a bit. James is prominently featured on the Capitol City Cycleshare web page, as you can see above. Here's a description of what Capitol City Cycleshare is about. (Great logo, by the way. Their Facebook…
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Posted inBooks

“But What If We’re Wrong?” Great question. Great book.

Browsing through the terrific bookstore in Sisters, Oregon -- Paulina Springs Books -- I knew that I'd buy Chuck Klosterman's newest literary offering as soon as I saw the upside-down title on the front cover. But What If We're Wrong?  I've been wrong about so much, so many times, over so many years, this theme immediately resonated with me. Turning the book over, the subtitle was almost equally appealing: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past.  I already do this in a certain sense, since I'm unable to keep up with the magazines that we subscribe to.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Common facts are the bedrock of democracy — which Trump is blasting away at

There's a lot of reasons to detest what President Trump is doing to our country. What's most concerning, though, isn't any specific outrage -- destroying health care, denying global warming, tearing apart the social safety net -- but his general attack on shared reality. If people can't agree about the basic nature of the world we all live in together, it isn't possible to even discuss the problems we face, much less agree about what needs to be done about them.  About a week ago I wrote about "On Tyranny," a little book that packed a big punch. This is…
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Posted inSalem

Photos of 2017 Salem WillaMutt Strut — adorable dogs!

Here's what my camera captured at last Sunday's Willamette Humane Society WillaMutt Strut event at Riverfront Park. The family dog, ZuZu, and I completed the 5k walk, though not in anything approaching record time. But if I could subtract all the moments ZuZu spent sniffing dog pee (and who knows what else) instead of walking, our performance would look a heck of a lot better. 
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Posted inBooks Current affairs

“On Tyranny” is a disturbingly great read for these Trumpian times

On Tyranny by historian Timothy Snyder is a small 126-page book that I read in about ninety minutes. But it's impact on me was huge.  Yes, good things come in small packages. And in this case, only cost $5.26 (from Amazon).  Snyder never mentions Donald Trump by name. But his frequent references to "the president" make it clear about the tyrant he's warning us about.  This is the most astounding thing about Snyder's book: that he wrote it.  Now. After Trump's election. To alert Americans to the danger of tyranny arising in our liberal democracy that, until recently, was generally…
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Posted inHome life

Hines home as seen by a drone

Recently we had Exos Aerial Imaging take some drone photos/videos of our rural south Salem property. I've shared the images in an Adobe Spark page. We realize that one day a city house likely is in our future. But if you look at these images, you'll realize why it's tough for us to imagine living anywhere but the place we've called home for 27 years. 
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Posted inSports

Oregon’s softball team shows how far women’s sports has come since 1966

I just finished watching the Oregon softball team come from behind in the final inning to beat Kentucky and advance to the Women's College World Series.  It was an amazing game. Since I was recording it, and the Ducks were down a distressing 5-2 at the end of the sixth, I figured there was little chance a comeback was in order. So I acceded to our dog's wordless demand and took her for a walk just before the seventh inning got underway. Returning home, I settled in to watch the final inning. The end result -- four runs scored in…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

First day with Pictar iPhone camera grip: I’m impressed

I was a Kickstarter supporter of the Pictar camera grip for the iPhone, which isn't really an accurate name for the gadget, since in addition to being a grip it also offers an easy way to control the basic iPhone photo features while adding new ones through some software magic. Having recently gotten my Kickstarter reward, I tested it out on a dog walk here in rural south Salem, Oregon. Before sharing some of the photos I took and my first-impression review of the device, here's what the Pictar grip offers: Well, you don't get an iPhone with it, obviously.…
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Posted inHome life Retirement community

A big burn pile reminds me why we’re not in a retirement community

My wife are I are at an awkward age (which keeps getting awkwarder). I talked about this three years ago in "Too old for ten acres and a big house -- too young for retirement living." I guess you could call us tweeners. Senior citizen variety. At 65, my wife and I are beginning to find that the joy of maintaining our large 1970's era house on ten rural acres is beginning to wear thin. So we've started to think about where we'd like to move when and if we really want to. But only a year later in 2015…
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