Bloggal Dormancy

This blog is dormant.

In the meantime--

For words of encouragement, click here.

And remember, there is only one Donald Trump.

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Bad Housekeeping re Stuff

My wife is slowly and with great purpose going through possessions and getting rid of stuff in a certain category.  It is stuff for which she now has little or no use.  It is stuff that, after our demise, will have to be removed by a cleanup crew, most likely our children.  Hers is a noble and well-intentioned effort.

I am not participating.  You see, after I'm gone I want my kids to truly know what their old man was like.  I want to give them cause to say:  "Why would he save this?"  Or--with a look of disgust on the face--"What would anybody do with this?"  I want them to realize that I took great delight in some simple doodad that any sane person would toss in the trash.

Not to be concerned.  I have already disposed of items packaged with language such as "enhance pleasure," "shipped with discreet labels," and so forth.
You won't find any such stuff in my leftovers.

But you will find that I wanted to incentivize (ugly word but I felt compelled to use it) the cleanup project by hiding here and there packages of Hostess Ding Dongs.  Bon appetit!

And to start searchers on the right foot, here is a short piece on "Stuff," by George Carlin.  (Sorry, but I could not get the link's timeline to start at zero.)

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A Scary Moment

Had a scary moment this morning.

Went to the barber for my usual haircut--short, #3 blade all over.  When finished, the barber held a mirror for my approval.

I looked like Rudy Giuliani.

Came home and looked in a different mirror.

All okay now.

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Don’t Just Sit There! Do Nothing!

Here is where I sit and do nothing. 

Actually, I do nothing in a lot of places, but this is my favorite--the Disabled Fishing Access on the American River Parkway.  There are a few picnic tables here on a bluff, shade trees and a small pavilion, and a wheelchair ramp down to water level. 

I’m usually here early in the morning and often have the place to myself.  Other old men visit the place, and for some of them it’s a last waypoint. Their passing is noted when a new memorial is etched into the concrete base of a picnic table.  The table I’m sitting at while I scribble a few notes has at its base the name of a man who “found beauty, joy, and solace in this place.”

I rarely see a woman here, just old men.  I guess that by the time we get to be this age the women are glad to get us out of the house for a while.

I should really be posting more, but I get busy, often doing nothing.  It’s okay to do nothing, beneficial even.  In the realm of health and wellness the next big thing could be doing nothing, in the manner of the stress-reducing practice from the Netherlands labeled by the Dutch word niksen.  

Of course, it’s impossible to do absolutely nothing, to flatline the activity curve. We have too many things to do when awake, and when asleep the brain continues to turn and churn, sorting out tasks or mischief for when we wake up.

Therefore, the experts on niksen say that the thing to do is do nothing with a purpose, such as daydreaming.  That I’m good at.

Articles on the internet say a lot about niksen.  Please read them if you need any advice on how to do nothing.  As for me, I'm about to do . . .

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Museum of Flight / Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane

All text and the photograph of Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane are from the website of the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

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Wonder Woman’s Invisible Plane was designed by the enlightened Amazons of Paradise Island using highly advanced Amazon engineering.

Originally referred to as the Silent Invisible Plane, this propeller driven aircraft can fly faster than 2000 mph (3218.69 km/h) and can make trans-Atlantic flights without re-fueling. The plane features navigational devices such as a robot control pilot, a locascope and an electronic mist beam. Wonder Woman also commanded course and flight paths with telepathic signals and electronic devices in her tiara.

BARNSTORMING

Wonder Woman retired her invisible plane in the 1950’s—upgrading to a jet-powered version. The original plane has been stored in a barn outside of Washington D.C. ever since. The Museum of Flight acquired Wonder Woman’s Invisible Plane from Lt. Diana Prince on April 1st, 2013.

THE WONDER OF FLIGHT

The invisible plane’s replacement, the invisible jet, is believed to be either an incarnation of Pegasus, the WINGED HORSE or a morphing robotic substance called "Dome ." Use of the invisible jet has become increasingly rare ever since Wonder Woman gained the ability to fly on her own.

AHEAD OF ITS TIME

Amazon technology demonstrated advanced stealth and speed capabilities more than 20 years before comparable human-built aircraft such as the Lockheed YF-12A, which reached a speed of 2,070.1 miles per hour on May 1, 1965 and the YO-3A, the nearly silent observation aircraft created in 1970.

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Falls: A Beginner’s Guide

I am here to report on research regarding falls.  You won’t read about this research anywhere else.  It is research that I alone performed.  My methods consisted of casual observations of my own falls.  My methods were not painstaking.  Neither were they painful.  None of my falls caused any kind of injury to any part of my body.   Neither was my pride damaged in a fall.  A long marriage has enucleated my fragile male ego and masculine pride.

There are two types of falls—stupid falls and gyro-out falls.

A stupid fall is one that could have been prevented if you’d watch where you put your feet.  My last stupid fall was six to eight years ago.  I was on a ladder changing the bulb in the front entryway light.  When I came down I missed the last step on the ladder.  It was a short fall, during which I landed on my back, spread-eagled atop a small shrub.  What was lacking were savages to smear my face with honey to attract ants that would attack and destroy me.  That didn’t happen.

To understand a gyro-out fall, think of the gyroscopes that spin at high revolutions per minute to stabilize airplane autopilots.  When the spinning stops suddenly, the gyro tumbles, and the airplane would fall down and go boom were it not for human intervention.  Well, inside the human skull is an inner ear contraption that takes the place of that gyro.  That contraption, called a vestibular, can wear out with the decrepitude of old age.  When that happens, the sense of balance goes down the tubes.

To avoid gyro-out falls, the trick is not to move too fast—I can handle that—and avoid abrupt changes of direction—often tough to do.  I admit to about six gyro-out falls.  That’s the way it goes.

It helps to have a recovery plan.  After all, you can’t just lie there indefinitely; sooner or later someone will come along if for no other purpose than to sweep the floor.  And people will want to help you up or go fetch a doctor or do something to disturb you.

The usual response is to angrily say, “Leave me alone!”

I prefer the more dignified, “I have to get back to my table.  I’ve got a drink waiting for me.”

Seriously, and falls should be taken seriously, if you send a search engine around the web looking for “falls elderly,” you can get a ton of information about falls and fall prevention.

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My Culinary Guilt Trip

When I was a couple weeks shy of my nineteenth birthday, the air force sent me to Keesler Air Force Base at Biloxi, Mississippi.  Basic training in Texas had transformed me from a civilian into an air force enlisted man; at a school in Mississippi, the air force was going to turn me into an electronics technician.

Biloxi is on the Gulf Coast, near the western end of an arc of coastline that today is called the Redneck Riviera.  Casinos dominate the area these days, but I remember the place as a strip of waterfront with a nice beach, a few restaurants, and a large multi-use hall operated by the USO, the United Service Organizations.  The USO is a charity enterprise that often serves as the GI’s home away from home.  I appreciated the Biloxi USO building as a quiet place off base where I could sit in a comfortable chair and read.

Once a month, on payday, I rode a bus from the base into Biloxi and ate dinner at a beach-front restaurant.  I always ate the same thing:  chicken-fried steak.  I don’t remember the air force mess halls serving chicken-fried steak; nor do I remember eating it at home, but somewhere along the way I had tasted it and become hooked on it.

Why not?  It was tasty although being of dubious, probably negative, health benefits; tasty is all that counted.  Back then most of us knew little about cholesterol, and the word triglycerides could have referred to a kid’s toy.  I like it, folks, and I’m gonna eat it.

And it was popular.  I spent most of my first year in the air force stationed in the Deep South, and restaurant menus there gave me the impression that chicken-fried steak was the national dish of the Confederate States of America.

So here I am, a lifetime later, once a week going to Perko’s to eat chicken-fried steak.  If you’re unfamiliar with this culinary delight, you can watch a YouTube video and see how a piece of beefsteak is breaded and fried and served with a cream gravy.  Right there I can start to feel my arteries begin to clog up.  I get it with green beans and a baked potato slathered with butter and sour cream, more clogging of arteries, and a glass, okay two, of cabernet.

Of course, it’s not a good meal for a diabetic, or anyone for that matter, and it’s definitely not top-tier dining.

But it comes with a fringe benefit:  good old Christian guilt.  Christ may have died for my sins, but I’m willing to be that he didn’t know one of them would be chicken-fried steak.

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One of My Failings--No Recliner

A few days ago I was killing time with a bunch of other gray-haired people.  We were at a local library waiting for an event to begin, and we were talking about recliners. 

That is, everyone else in the group except me was talking about recliners.  I was out because I don't own a recliner.  I always figured that I could slouch very well in a chair without needing a levered contraption to help me.  And one time I sat in a vinyl-covered recliner whose surface was so slick I thought I was going to slither down to the floor.

But ownership of a recliner was unanimous among the rest of the group—one man owned two—and they lauded the values and comfort of the device.

So, based on a limited sample of available old people, it appears that a person must have a recliner to really be considered old.

Or maybe not.

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A Peril of Pedantry

One of my pleasures is membership in the Dull Men’s Club.  This group has male and female members throughout the English-speaking world.  It is an online group with a website and a Facebook page.  The Facebook page is regularly loaded with witty and erudite comments posted by people trying to show that they not witty and erudite but indeed quite dull.  I spend about an hour each afternoon reading it.

Every now and then a pedant gets a word in.

About the word pedant.  It sounds like a tiny insect on a bicycle, but it’s not.  It’s too close for comfort in its nearness to pedophile or pederast.  And if you say we need people to watch out for the little things, I’d say you are dead right.  But it can be foolish to swat at mosquitoes while being stomped into the ground by elephants.

Anyway, a member of the Dull Men’s Club recently authored a Facebook post about the United Kingdom’s flag.  He called it the Union Jack.  A pedant came to arms and wrote, “the flag of the United Kingdom is actually only called the Union Jack when it is flown on the jack-staff on the bow of a Royal Naval ship. The correct name for the flag is the Union Flag.”

Now, you see, one of the guiding principles of pedantry is that it is incredibly easy to be wrong.  And here we are guided toward correctness by an organization in London, England—the Flag Institute.

As to what to call the UK’s flag, Union Jack or Union Flag, the Flag Institute says, “in 1902 an Admiralty Circular announced that Their Lordships had decided that either name could be used officially. Such use was given Parliamentary approval in 1908 when it was stated that “the Union Jack should be regarded as the National flag.”

So there.

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Redacted Message

To read this redacted message, hold your monitor up with a bright light behind it.  The words will appear as if by magic.

Saving Keystrokes

It's been a while since I posted anything here, and this is my reason.

You see, I've been saving keystrokes.  I am not a touch typist but instead use the Columbus System of typing--discover and land.  Some times many landings are necessary to locate the right key.  Thus, where a touch typist might use 200 keystrokes to compose a simple note, I can pass through 300 and counting.

Fatigued as I am by numerous trips across a keyboard I decided it was time for a rest.  Thus no posts.

But I haven't forgotten that I need to feed this blog from time to time, and, as The Terminator says, "I'll be back."

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