Posted inSalem

Wow! Bentley Michaels has performed 3,000 times at Enchanted Forest Theatre

The Enchanted Forest theme park, Salem's charming local version of Disneyland, has been a part of my life since I moved to Salem in 1977 with my wife at the time, Sue, and my five year old daughter, Celeste.  We'd go to Enchanted Forest often. After my granddaughter, Evelyn, was born to Celeste and her husband, Patrick, in 2007, it didn't take long before Evelyn was enjoying Enchanted Forest as much as Celeste did when she was young. And Evelyn was living in southern California, close to Disneyland. Didn't matter. Enchanted Forest has a unique quality, born of the love…
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Posted inStarlink

Global Starlink outage shows peril of relying on giant tech companies

When Starlink, Space X's satellite internet service, is working, it's a gigantic plus for people like me who have no other viable broadband options. But when Starlink goes offline, as it did today, it can be a huge pain. As I've learned over the past 4 1/2 years after I became a beta tester soon after Starlink was rolled out, when it comes to troubleshooting, users are pretty much on their own -- at least initially. There's no phone number to call for customer support. You have to put in a support ticket via the Starlink app. Sometimes those are…
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Posted inDogs Home life

Our dog misses my wife, but she’s putting up with me

Mooka, our Husky mix, is considerably more attached to my wife, Laurel, than she is to me. Laurel does the dog training. Laurel takes Mooka for her favorite morning walk. Laurel takes Mooka to the dog park, another favorite place.  I feed Mooka in the late afternoon and give her a pre-dinner walk most days. But I'm under no illusion about who is the Alpha in Mooka's mind. It's Laurel. So when Laurel left last Friday for a four day trip to Indiana to see her relatives, I knew that Mooka wasn't going to be thrilled about being left with…
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Posted inSalem

Salem’s downtown parking app worked well for me today

I allowed for some extra time to park in downtown Salem today, as I wasn't sure how smoothly the Beep Beep Salem app would work on the first day of paid onstreet parking and I didn't want to be late for my Tai Chi class on Court Street. But Beep Beep Salem worked great on my iPhone, undoubtedly because the iconic dog on the home screen is a skilled programmer. (I suppose the $25,000 the City of Salem paid to Flowbird to adapt their parking app for local use also could have had something to do with it.) As I…
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Posted inSalem

I’m ready for paid downtown parking with the Beep Beep Salem app

Thursday, July 10 -- that's when free three-hour on street parking in downtown Salem ends, and the new era of paid parking up to twelve hours begins.  These signs started appearing more than two weeks ago. I took this photo on June 19. It would have confused me if my Tai Chi instructor, who leases space on Court Street, hadn't posted a notice from the City of Salem saying that paid parking doesn't start until July 1, later postponed to July 10. Here's excerpts from a  June 26 Salem Reporter story, "Concern, confusion as Salem rolls out paid downtown parking."…
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Posted inHome life

If your Generac won’t connect to wi-fi, here’s a tip that might help

A couple of years ago my wife and I got a Generac whole house generator after suffering through the Great Salem Ice Storm of 2021, which left us without power for twelve days (our 7000 watt Honda generator worked fine, but it isn't anywhere near as convenient and powerful as the 24,000 watt Generac). Aside from an oil leak, which was fixed by the company, Northside Electric, we bought the Generac from, the only problem we've had with the generator is a spotty wi-fi connection. Wi-fi is built into the Generac, but it requires some connection steps via the notoriously…
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Posted inNeighborhood

Save The Mail Depot in south Salem (sign a petition)

My wife and I have lived in south Salem for 35 years. Throughout all that time, The Mail Depot on Liberty Road, near Walgreens, has been by far our preferred place to mail letters and packages, as they offer USPS, FedEx, and UPS services -- so you've got a choice at The Mail Depot. The USPS (United States Postal Service) branch on Commercial Street is much less convenient. Farther away. Longer lines. Only one mailing choice, the postal service.  Which makes it really disturbing to learn that the USPS is planning to cancel its contract with The Mail Depot, which…
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Posted inHome life Web/Tech

Trump administration screwing around with expanded broadband access

Of all the fucked-up things the Trump administration is doing, this doesn't rank in the top FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair) category. But it sure bugs me big-time, because I dearly want more broadband options available in Oregon as soon as possible. I speak as someone who has precisely one viable broadband service available to my wife and me out here in rural south Salem, Oregon: Starlink. I've been a Starlink customer since a beta invitation came my way in January 2021. Starlink is way better than the dreadfully slow CenturyLink DSL we suffered with for many years of…
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Posted inSports

Here’s hoping Oregon State has a great Men’s College World Series run

Tomorrow, June 13, Oregon State plays its first game in the 2025 Men's College World Series: 4 pm Pacific time against Louisville, televised on ESPN. I've been looking forward to this ever since the Beavers won two out of three games against Florida State in the Corvallis Super Regional, thereby punching their ticket to Omaha and the College World Series. This could be wishful thinking, but watching Oregon State play in the post-season makes me think the team is destined for a national championship. I fondly remember the three championships OSU won in 2006, 2007, and 2018. The current incarnation…
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Posted inGrowing older Health

Death Clock app tells me I’ll die on December 7, 2039 at age 91. I’ll take it.

Thanks to a story in the Washington Post, "How many years do I have left? An app gave me helpful insights," today I learned how long I have to live -- based on the answers I gave to 29 questions. The story gave some examples of the questions. Although the specific date of death is obviously not intended to be accurate — the app’s disclaimer says it’s “for fun only” — it does tie your personal habits to your likelihood of living into old age and tells you what lifestyle changes might buy you more time. Thus Death Clock AI’s…
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Posted inScience

Scientist AI proposed as a way to keep us safe from “agent” AI models

There's a lot of talk nowadays about the dangers that AI (artificial intelligence) models such as ChatGPT could pose to humanity as they come closer to AGI -- artificial general intelligence. That would make AI models akin to a super-intelligent person, but with powers potentially much vaster than any person now possesses. It's easy to see how things could go horribly wrong. (Just imagine an AI version of Elon Musk that is 1000 times smarter with no way to control its actions.) The situation seems hopeless given the rush to create AI models with very little regulation. No country wants…
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Posted inSports

Wow! Oregon State baseball wins four in a row in regional after losing opener

Really impressive, Oregon State baseball. Amazing comeback. This afternoon the team defeated USC 9-0, advancing to the super regional phase of the NCAA tournament. That seemed really unlikely three days ago. After fighting hard all season to become a highly ranked team (#8 in the country) that earned the right to host both a Corvallis regional and super-regional in the 2025 NCAA tournament, the top seeded Beavers flopped in a 6-4 opening loss to fourth seed Saint Mary's last Friday. In a double elimination tournament, losing the first game makes for an uphill battle, since another loss means an exit…
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Posted inFamily

Why my mother wouldn’t attend my high school graduation

Today my granddaughter graduated from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California. I watched via a streaming video. The auditorium was full of proud parents, grandparents, and friends. My daughter sent me a photo of she and her husband with the new graduate. This brought to mind a memory of my own high school graduation that has quite a bit of pain associated with it. Of course, after 59 years -- I was in the class of 1966 -- both memories and pain fade considerably.  I'm still bothered by my mother's action though. Which was, choosing to not attend…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment

Conclusion of Handmaid’s Tale inspires resistance against Trump’s autocracy

I just finished watching the last episode of the final season of The Handmaid's Tale. It capped a wonderful story spanning six seasons of resistance by June Osborne (masterfully played by Elisabeth Moss) and many others against the dictatorial regime of Gilead -- a religious autocracy that forces women into becoming breeding machines impregnated by rapists who are Commanders of the regime. It was a difficult series for me to watch. I came to it late, after the first five seasons had concluded. Sometimes I wanted to give up on the Handmaid's Tale. Often, or usually, it was bleak, dark,…
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Posted inSports

Here’s why an Oregon softball runner was called out twice for leaving a base early

I'm really happy that the University of Oregon softball team is headed to the 2025 College Women's World Series after winning twice over Liberty this weekend in a super-regional matchup in Eugene. But there were two plays in the first game on Friday that left both the announcers and me wondering, What the heck was that all about? In each case, Kai Luschar, Oregon's lead off hitter who is noted for her speed and ability to steal bases, was called out after appearing to steal a base following a challenge by the Liberty head coach. Here's a video that shows…
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Posted inSports

Oregon softball team was inspiring in winning regional over Stanford

Whenever the University of Oregon softball team makes the post-season, I look forward to watching them even if I didn't see any of their preceding games. Baseball appeals to me also, but softball -- a woman's college sport -- is more entertaining for me, partly because a game moves along more quickly given the lack of annoying pick-off moves by the pitcher (in softball a base runner can't get a lead until the pitch is thrown) and a game lasts seven innings instead of nine (even shorter if a team is ahead by eight or more runs after five innings…
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Posted inStarlink

Be sure your Starlink power supply matches what your dish needs

I've been a user of the Starlink satellite internet system since January 2021, when I became a beta tester.  I've learned a lot about Starlink over the years, but there's always more to know.  My message in this post is simple: if you're having a problem with your Starlink, be sure that the power supply is properly matched with your dish. I discovered this the hard way recently. It all started when I came home in the late afternoon and found that our Starlink broadband had gone offline. Usually restarting the router solves the problem. That didn't work. I tried…
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Posted inHealth

Acupuncture is an example of the games health insurers play with benefits

Though I can't prove this scientifically because I'm not a controlled experiment, there's good reason for me to believe that I've benefited from my acupuncture treatments for low back pain and the related sciatica from Karen Kaufman. I talked about this in a June 2024 blog post, accurately titled "I benefited from my sessions at Salem's Innerhealth Acupuncture Clinic." I'm convinced that Kaufman helped relieve the sciatica pain in my right leg considerably. Naturally I can't be sure of this, since I'm not a random controlled experiment, just one person who was drawn to try acupuncture after physical therapy didn't…
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Posted inSalem

Ugh. Paid on street parking coming to downtown Salem July 1

Three days a week I have to park in downtown Salem so I can go to my Tai Chi class on Court Street between Liberty and Commercial. My instructor posted this not-so-cheery card from the City of Salem, alerting us students to what is coming July 1. I find the "Get Ready to Meet Beep Beep Salem" annoying. Sure, if Beep Beep is the dog (if that's what the animal is) driving a little red car, that would be entertaining. Also, decidedly illegal, since I doubt a dog could pass the DMV test for a license. But Beep Beep Salem…
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Posted inBooks

Book recommendation: “A Walk in the Park” by Kevin Fedarko

I read a lot of books. They're a mixture of nonfiction and fiction. But I'm not into "literary" versions of these genres. I buy nonfiction in order to learn something. I buy fiction in order to entertain myself, usually in the spy/thriller/espionage sort of writings.  (The Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva that I enjoy a lot comes closest to literary fiction, being very well written; however, I doubt Silva's books truly qualify as literary fiction.) However, near the end of 2024 I saw a list of 100 recommended nonfiction books published last year. I figured I needed to broaden…
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