Training trees to drop their leaves correctly

Our trees at the end of their training

After 12 years of training, these two maple trees have finally been trained to drop their leaves right around the trunk. It was a struggle. I should have kept pictures throughout the years so you could see when the trees just dropped their leaves straight down and how it has gotten better each year as I trained them to steer the leaves so that they drop right around the trunk. This makes the leaves much easier to pick up to put in a garden trailer for moving to our huge leaf pile in the back yard.

The hard part turned out to be training the trees NOT to drop their leaves on windy days. The wind makes everything more difficult. So, it's better to just train the trees to stop dropping leaves when the wind is blowing over 10 miles an hour. Below that, the trees seem to be able to still aim the leaves in the correct direction.

The other good thing about the leaves bunched up around the trunk is that when wind speed does get high (this is Cape Cod after all and the wind regularly reaches speeds of 20 - 30 miles per hour on a normal day and higher on a stormy day), the trunk seems to hold the leaves and keep them from dispersing.

So, even though this has been a wet year (it was one of the wettest years we've ever had) and there were a lot more leaves, these trained tree leaves are all gone now. Perhaps you'd like to know how I did this. I used the same methods to train the trees as I used to build this bridge - which I can let you have for a very good price!

Merry Christmas

I hope you are having a merry Christmas. My family and I are enjoying ours but it is not an easy time. My mother-in-law has dementia and my wife is both upset by the effect of that disease on her mother and is worn out by taking care of her. My mother-in-law lives with us in a separate part of the house. In fact, she is living in the original house she and her husband (who dies about 17 years ago) built almost 60 years ago. About 12 years ago, we added on to her house for our own house and we have a connecting door so it's easy for us to help her. When she was first diagnosed, it wasn't too bad. But in the last two years, we've seen a sharp decline in her ability to remember. Now, she sometimes doesn't recognize us and has trouble remembering where things are in her house. She has to be constantly reminded where the bathroom is and that she is living in her own home. She will often hallucinate that other people are in her house (although we think this may be from seeing something on the TV).

But beyond that, we have had a good Christmas. And, of course, the central reason for our celebrating Christmas remains - a child was born of a virgin in Bethlehem who was God with us. He is Christ the Lord and his joy and salvation remain. He helps us and loves us. We do have medical aides who come in to sit with my mother-in-law while my wife gets a break. She has health insurance so she can afford most things she needs.

The picture at the top is not only a picture of an abundance of holly berries on a tree in our backyard. It is also an example of renewal and hope. In the spring of this year, this holly tree lost a large portion of its leaves. They were turning yellow with large brown spots and then falling off in huge numbers. I was worried that the tree was dying. But later in the summer, an equal (or greater) number of new leaves appeared. The tree is doing better than ever and I've never seen more berries on this tree. You can click on the picture to show it full sized.

I was reading an article about a new treatment for dementia and Alzheimer's Disease that will soon be moving to human trials. This link to New Atlas has the article. The two best parts of this, to me, are:

1. This is not a new drug but an ultrasound treatment so there aren't as many worries about side affects
2. This treatment actually reverses the effects of the disease

So, while this is a terrible disease, there is still hope. May we all have hope in the future. If you know Jesus as your personal savior, you do have that hope.

On Vacation

I'm taking a vacation that has a been a while coming. Having worked at this company for 30 years, I get a lot of leave but I haven't been able to take as much as I'd like. I've built up enough leave to lose some because we can only retain up to 200 hours of vacation leave (and another 200 hours of sick leave). After that, it just disappears.

For one thing, the projects I'm working on still need a lot of work. Even though the main project I work on is over 16 years old, and there are newer options for some of its features, it still needs to be updated from time to time. And I am the only person actively working on the code so if I take time off, no work gets done on this product. Whenever we need to release a newer version, we have to scramble to find an available testing engineer because they are all busy on newer or developing projects. We've done six releases of my product in the last two years. I'm not just the developing engineer but I'm the build engineer, too. And when especially hard problems come in to our Tech Support department, I pitch in to help on those, too. I used to have to run the project, too, but now we have someone to organize the meetings and coordinate between engineering, production and marketing.

For another thing, as I get older (I'm 67 years old) I find it harder and harder to get things done. If I take time off, it means it takes me a while to get back into the swing of things when I return. The younger engineers seem to be light on their feet. They look through multiple ways of solving a problem and seem to be able to find the best solution quickly. I plod along looking through the existing code for the problem or to find a way to include a new feature and then struggle with the solution. Part of the problem is that I don't want to make major changes to a product that has worked well for so long. Also, you don't want to change how something works when customers are used to it working that way. Change for change's sake is no way to improve a product.

I'm also part of a new, exciting project that will eventually entirely replace the old project I'm working on but there is a long way to go on it so the old project must be kept going. I like working on this old project. It's nice to be able to get a request from a customer and fit it into the the existing framework without slowing down the existing program or making it harder to use. It's like adding rooms and passages and stairways to an existing building without annoying existing users or making them stop using it while we work to improve it. We just pull back a curtain every few months and say, "Look what we've added," or, "Look what we fixed." A smooth transition to a better version of the existing product is a joy that keeps me going.

Don't forget to look around

Click to see the larger view

The screen saver on one of my less-used computers at work has a changing view of my old photos and the one here just came up. It reminded me of an earlier post from this year called Sometimes you need to take your eye OFF the ball. That post revolved around a funny story of someone taking a picture of his daughter with a celebrity and missing the fact that another celebrity was there, too.

In our picture, taken back in 2004, my family was so intent on getting a picture by this elf statue that they didn't notice that the man himself (we were at Santa's Village in Jefferson New Hampshire) was walking by. We'd see him later so it was no big deal but it just stuck me again how easy it is to miss important things around us. We get so intent on doing mundane things that we miss the wonders and miracles around us. Especially this time of year. We all have goals and for many of us it is preparing for Thanksgiving or buying gifts for Christmas or getting a project done at work. We focus on those things and miss the things not associated with the trip to the finish line. Nothing I am saying is new and you know it better than I do. I'm just writing this now because I was reminded of it just now. I'm not going to change your life or your mind - unless this reminds you of it now, too.

I'm going to be writing a post soon about another distraction we face and how it can have a more serious result.

One of the things I especially enjoy about riding my scooter to work is that I have a much better view of the road and the surroundings. I see more things. Partly because I have the better view but also because I am forced to notice things around me - my health is at stake if I miss a car coming at me. Yes, it was freezing this morning but I dressed warmly and scooted in. I find I am more alert and ready to go when I arrive at work. Sitting in a car lets you relax and remain less alert. Listening to the radio is the only real plus to driving the car to work. Well, that and not getting wet in the rain!

Everything is easy...

I wrote a comment on another blog where the post was about a change that forced the blog writer to change their schedule. The blog writer said that some people might question how hard it really was to simply change his schedule. Well, that made me think.

Very often at work, someone will come along with an idea for a change to the software projects I work on. More times than not, the suggestion will come with the line, "This should be an easy change." Nothing drives me crazy quite like that line does. I usually give one of two answers to this:

1. "If it is that easy, you shouldn't have any trouble doing it."
2. "Everything is easy when you don't have to do it."

That second answer is my favorite because you can take it two way.

One way puts the emphasis on "you" as in, "Everything is easy when  you don't have to do it." In other words, since I am doing this and you are not doing this, it's easy for you to say it will be easy because you will not be taking the time to look into all the possible problems it will cause or at all the difficulties we may find in accomplishing this.

The other way to look at the second answer is in questioning whether this should even be done. If there is no reason to change the behavior or add a feature, then it is easier to just not do it.

Too many things are done just because someone thinks a new feature is needed. This not only adds complexity for no reason. It also makes the project just a little bit harder to maintain or fix in the future.

Nothing improves if no one complains

Downloaded from
https://www.publicdomainpictures.net

No one likes a complainer. Especially someone who acts like no one has it as hard as they do. Some people act like the world is against them and use every opportunity to let you know. But those people are rare and I think that, eventually, they get the idea that they are not endearing themselves to anyone with their constant complaints.

But on the other hand, as I've said frequently:

Nothing improves if no one complains

So, it's a fine line - if you see something wrong, you need to know how to complain but in addition, you need to know how to help. And sometimes, complaining so other people can hear you is useful. Not all the time but sometimes. Like yesterday.

The network administrators for our company made an announcement a few weeks ago that they were going to tighten the rules on the passwords we use to log into our computers and get access to the company network. They said too many people were using simple passwords and we all had to start using longer and more complex passwords. We all forgot about it. Until yesterday.

All of a sudden, the program I use to prepare one of our major applications started to fail. I traced it down to the part where it tries to copy the updated application to the network so everyone can use it. I contacted the administrators and they reminded me about the new rules for passwords. "Well," I said, "this program is only used internally and no one else has access to it but me. Why should that need a new, fancier password?"It turns out the rules were not that flexible. All passwords needed to be upgraded. This meant I had a lot of work to do because this password was embedded in a number of smaller programs that prepared and loaded our application. It took me half the day but I finally did it.

But I couldn't just drop it. I had to make a big production of it and did a little hand waving and story telling to make sure everyone knew how hard I'd worked and how distressed I was! But in the end, it helped. Another engineer was having a similar problem and didn't know what the cause was. One of the fellows sitting near me had heard my tirade and mentioned to the other engineer what I'd been complaining about. The other engineer came to me to ask more about the problem and, sure enough, his problem was the same as mine. He would have been stuck for a longer time if our intermediary hadn't connected my rant with the other engineer's problem.

So sometimes, it's worth getting a little mad and maybe even getting a little too loud about an injustice. Something useful might just come out of it.

You can have it all

"Having it all," is a phrase we've all heard over the years. It was usually used for the growing number of women getting jobs while they were also taking care of children or were thinking of having children. In the past, the phrase implied, women had to choose between having a career or starting a family. But now, they were free to "have it all". They could balance the time it took for work and for the family. It was nice that this freedom was available but it missed a few troubling things. For one, there was also an increase in stress. The women doing this were not magically given more time in the day to handle all of this. In some circumstances, the woman's husband would step up and help with more of the family side of the equation. Good luck with that.

The other thing this phrase misses is that this was not new. It has been going on for centuries. For women with children who lose their husband, there is no choice. They have to do it all - all the time. The same goes for single women who have children and the man doesn't follow through and marry her or help raise the children. These women have it all for sure  - all the responsibility, all the worry, all the time.

Then this morning in church, we were singing a song called You Can Have it All, Lord. Our pastor had just preached a sermon on John 13:1-11 where Jesus washes the feet of the disciples. Jesus has to explain to them that they cannot wash his feet. He must wash their feet to cleanse them. It is grace that he is talking about. No matter the problems we have, the troubles we cause, the sins we have committed. Jesus takes it all and forgives us. Now, he "has it all". It's hard to imagine but that's the way it works. There is nothing we can do to deserve it. It's his free gift to us.

Having it all could mean you're having all the problems. It could mean having all the worry. But we can give it all to Jesus and the freedom is wonderful. In this case, having it all is a choice but in the reverse. It's more "giving it all" and then receiving salvation.

Here is the link to our pastor's message. He says much better than I can.

Another great "Humans of New York" post

I've mentioned Humans of New York before but there are so many good posts there, I could almost just repeat every one here. But what's the use of that? You can just go and see them for yourself. But every once in a while, there is one so good that I want to point it out.

This one is from a few months ago but it has stuck with me. The man in the story is down on his luck but what he says shows that wisdom is often hidden in despair and trouble. This picture and interview were taken in a park in New York. That's all I know about it.

"When it starts to get crowded, I’ll leave.  Because I can’t stand the looks.  You know how many people were gonna sit on that bench over there, but decided against it, because of what’s sitting right here?  I drank myself into homelessness.  So I’m not looking for violins or tissues.  But I used to be in the mainstream.  I was somebody once, and people used to look at me without any barriers or animosity.  I can tell you this: when John Lennon sings Imagine, it’s complete bullshit.  He was living in the Dakota when he wrote that, overlooking Central Park.  Imagine no possessions?  He should have written a song about all the wonderful things that he had.  Imagine nothing to live or die for?  No Yoko?  No career?  No child?  No fame?  No status?  Well here I am.  There’s no peace here."

Here's the link to the original post.

Directions

Yesterday, we went to visit my mother-in-law in the hospital. Before I go on - she's OK and we brought her home with us. She is 83 and has some problems but yesterday ended up OK.

But the hospital she was in is old and has been renovate many times over the years. Building after building was tacked on or multiple buildings connected together. The main parking lot is on one side but most of the nice, new patient rooms are on the other side. So, when you go to the main lobby from the parking lot looking for the patient, they hand you a card with directions. Here is what it says:

Go thru door at rear of lobby. Turn right, then turn left. At end of hall, turn right. Go thru door at end of hall & turn left. Take next right down the art corridor to the inpatient building. Elevator on right.

Good grief! Notice they left out most of "the", shortened "through" and replaced "and" with ampersand. Otherwise they would have needed two pages.

By the time we got to the art corridor, we were too tired (or afraid to get distracted) to look at the art. We did get to see my mother-in-law but had to wait about two hours until the discharge papers could be written up and signed. We all had a nice nap when we got home - after a 45 minute drive home from the hospital.

Broccoli

Ahh - good broccoli

This is going to be a short rant. I like broccoli. I didn't used to like it when I was young but back then, I liked very little that was green - except pickles and olives. But now I like broccoli. I might even say I love broccoli. Except...

I don't like broccoli when the stems (or is it the stalks?) are included. When we buy fresh, whole broccoli from the store and use it in meals and cut it up ourselves, we don't use the stems (stalks). When you buy prepared packages of sliced broccoli or you get it as a side dish in a restaurant, you invariably (it seems to me) get the stems (stalks) included in the mix. This is when I don't like broccoli. As a matter of fact, I hate broccoli like that. What would you think if you ordered sliced apples and half of it was sliced branches?

Yuck - stems, too!

I know some people have ways of preparing the stems (stalks) by slicing it and cooking it for a longer time. I'm sure you can add enough spices to make them taste better. But they should not be cooked the same as the florets. The stems (stalks) need longer cooking so if you include them with the florets, either the florets are overcooked or the stems (stalks) are under cooked.

It seems to me that when you get packaged broccoli, it should have to say on the label if the stems (stalks) are included. That just my opinion but you know I'm right!

I saw it long before it happened

Not the squirrel from my story

 Earlier this summer, at least a month ago, I was riding my scooter into work as usual. I happened to notice the long tree branches arching over this section of the highway and imagined what would happen if squirrels were running along those branches and fell off. Now, squirrels are very sure-footed but things like high winds or other squirrels attacking or chasing them could cause them to lose their footing. So, I had this vision of a squirrel falling off a branch and landing in my lap. What a scene it was as the squirrel panicked and tried to scramble away from me. I imagined that I would try to stop so it could jump off and get safely away.

The more I thought about it, the funnier it seemed. If I'd been in an area where other people were standing by the side of the road, they would have thought it pretty strange that the guy on the scooter was laughing so hard. "What is he laughing at?" they'd probably think. "Should we call someone?"

A few days ago, I was on my scooter riding on another road where long tree branches extend over the road. I first saw a bunch of leaves fall to the road. As I looked up to see if more debris was going to fall, more fell on the road ahead of me. But it wasn't more leaves. It was a squirrel. He had fallen on the road about 15 feet ahead of me and it looked a little stunned. After a second of confusion or catching it's breath, it got its bearings and ran off the road with a lot of scrambling sounds on the pavement.

I don't know what caused this squirrel to fall but there was no wind. So, I'm assuming that another squirrel had been chasing this one. Or may it was evading a hawk. I'll never know but it made me laugh again. Once again I was lucky that no one was around to consider me crazy. Isn't it strange that I would imagine a similar episode a month earlier?

Something I realized later was that my reflexes are a lot better in my daydreams than they are in reality. In this case, I never even slowed down or swerved. Fortunately, the squirrel was not close enough that I would have hurt it. It's another lesson to be looking ahead for problems all the time.

Did I help or make it worse?

I was reading another blog today where the writer was wondering about where we get our ideas about what are good pills and supplements to take for our health. It made me think about my mother and I wrote this comment:

My mother lived alone until she broke her hip when she was 89. So, she came to live near us where we took care of organizing her pills (and other things). All her life, Mom complained that after she read the pills' side effects inserts, she found she was having those problems and would insist the doctor change the prescription. Then she'd read the new inserts and see those symptoms. So, after she moved here and we took over that part of her care, we didn't let her read the side effects inserts. Sadly, Mom died at 91 - about a year and a half after moving here and our taking over her care. Maybe having imagined illnesses was better than getting the real thing.

If you've been involved in the care of a loved one who died, you cannot help but feel guilty. "If I'd just been more understanding," or, "Why did I insist on that course of care?" are things I continue to worry about to this day. I think everyone goes through it but it still hurts. I still miss Mom terribly and wish I could have known what to do differently. But God has his own plan for our life and nothing we can do will add a second to it. I keep telling myself.

Many are the plans in a person’s heart,

but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21 New International Version

What did I do wrong?

As I was riding my scooter home from work the other night, I stopped behind a car at a busy intersection. I didn't have to worry about the traffic yet because the car in front of me would have to pull onto the road first. As we waited, the guy (who was alone in his car) gave me the finger! Now, if it had been a fleeting gesture, I might have thought I had imagined it. But no - he gave it to me long and clear. What had I done to antagonize this guy?

Was I too close? Had I steered my scooter back forth and shined my headlight in a threatening manner? I couldn't imagine what I had done. He was pretty far ahead of me and I know I had not cut in front of him unless it had happened earlier in the trip. Was he at the last intersection with the red light? Had I crowded him there? Did I remind him of someone he had an argument with or did we have an argument in the past? I didn't recognize his car. I couldn't see him clearly in the rear view mirror but from what I could see, I didn't recognize him.

Should I ride up beside him and ask him what the problem was? Should I be mad or apologetic? Should I say anything at all? He might have a gun or know powerful people or open his door fast and hit me with it.

All of this flashed through my mind in a few seconds and then I noticed something (as he continued to give me the finger) - his sun roof was moving. He was just adjusting his sunroof with the control on on the roof and he was using his finger to push the buttons. Of course!

So, to answer the question in the subject of this post - What I had done wrong was to jump to conclusions. And this was a good reminder to me to think before I act. I may have made him laugh if I had confronted him. Or I could have started something terrible.



The picture here is not from that day but it might help you imagine what I saw and what I thought I saw. Think about what this would look like from behind and not being able to see it clearly from about 15 feet away.

A goofy thought

I need to be writing more here but maybe not more of what I'm about to write.

As I was sitting in the bathroom just now, I realized that my underwear was on inside out. But then I though, "Maybe that's the way it should be." With men's underwear, the outside is smoother with the seams on the inside. Who cares if your underwear looks nice on the outside? The only people seeing your underwear are your mother and your spouse! What underwear needs to be is comfortable. And putting the seams on the outside does that.

I can't believe we advanced as a civilization without realizing this before.

Good weather - finally?

I've probably said this before but here goes, "This has been the worst spring I can remember." I've hardly ridden my scooter so far this year because it has either been too cold, too wet, too icy or snowy. Yes, it is always variable this time of year but I don't think it has ever been so consistently crappy as this year. Not only for riding my scooter but for walking and for getting work done in the yard.

On March 14, a very large tree fell in our yard during one of the many storms we've had this year and I still haven't finished chopping it up. I will try to remember to take a more recent picture to show my (slow) progress. We were very fortunate that it did no damage to the house. It fell at just the right angle.

Anyway - today is more spring-like. It was 48 (degrees Fahrenheit) this morning and may get up near 60 this afternoon! I rode my scooter in for about the sixth time this year (since January 1, 2018). But bad weather is coming again this week-end. So it's not really over yet.

30,000 miles

On the way into work today, I passed 30,000 miles on my scooter's odometer. The picture on the right shows it. I wasn't quite able to pull off the road at the exact time (hence, the tenths of a mile number is half-way to 1). I ended up down the road from where it really happened which was in front of someone's driveway. I didn't want them to think I was stopping in for a visit.

The lower picture shows where I was when it happened. Not that anyone cares about that. It's just down the road from a cranberry bog I've shown before when they were harvesting in the fall. You can click on the picture to expand it but it won't mean anything to you. Nothing interesting was going on there this morning - except that some weird guy stopped his scooter to take a picture of the dashboard for his blog post.

Since I seem to be putting 4,000 miles a year on my scooter, I could hit 50,000 miles within five years. We'll see.

Winter Olympics? Summer Olympics? It's all mixed up!

The 2018 Winter Olympics finished in February. I've always been confused by the sports included in the two types of Olympics. Basketball, wrestling, boxing, gymnastics and many other indoor sports are really winter sports. Even volleyball (but not beach volleyball!) is normally played in the winter months. It seems like they should be in the Winter Olympics. A lot of people would complain but if major league sports teams can be moved from one conference or league to another (Astros from the National League to the American League, Seahawks from NFC to AFC then back to NFC), why couln't Olympic sports be moved?

Maybe it would be easier to just rename the Winter Olympics to be the Snow and Ice Olympics. Then, maybe, the Summer Olympics could be called just The Olympics with the Snow and Ice Olympics being a special case of the Olympics.

I know it will never happen but that doesn't mean I'm not right :-)

If you want to remember things better

I just read a fascinating article on the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) website about how we can increase our ability to remember things. It's not some supplement you take or drug you have to use. It's not a vitamin or a course of study you have to take. It's simply to rest. Yes, my favorite activity! Rest!

Here is the link to the article. Read it for yourself. It is very encouraging. I'm not sure this technique is useful in every situation. For instance, I am terrible at remembering people's names when I first meet them. I can't imagine being introduced to someone at a party or other gathering and then immediately finding a quiet place with no distractions, sitting down, closing my eyes and relaxing. That would be a little awkward.

A short story

This happened about 30 years ago. Wow. That's when I first started working for this company. Where does the time go?

I had just started working for this company and was trying to fit in. I took on every challenge that was handed to me and tried new things. Since this company produced a number of different computer boards and other electronic devices for sale, I made a point of getting familiar with each of them. Since it was a small company, we all did a little technical support, answering customer questions and even cleaning up around the office. I made an attempt to always be the first person to arrive in the morning and one of the last to leave. And there was a company coffee maker where we all took turns making a new pot when the supply was low.

At some point, I thought the coffee tasted a little off so I decided to clean the coffee maker before everyone came in that day. I was used to doing that. You just pour some vinegar in and run it through the brew cycle. Then you use plain water to wash out the vinegar. No problem. Except this coffee maker was a Bunn-O-Matic. They have a reservoir of hot water (I think it must hold four or five pots worth of water) so that there is no waiting for the brewing to start. There is always hot water available and new water just fills up the reservoir for the next time. So, when I ran the vinegar through the system, it was diluted by the large amount of water already in the reservoir. Plus, running it through the brew cycle only ran a diluted vinegar solution through the machine. Not only did it not really clean the coffee maker, there was still vinegar in the system. For quite a while. I remember running the machine through at least four cycles and I could still smell the vinegar. I didn't even try brewing coffee because with the overwhelming vinegar smell, I knew it was no use. I think I ran a few more cycles and it finally didn't smell anymore so I brewed a pot of coffee. It tasted terrible. I was going to have to dump out all the water in the reservoir and start over.

I couldn't find a drain so I had to tip the whole coffee maker on its side by the sink. I remember not being able to get it all out until I tipped the bottom up very high. When I did that, a tube that directed the hot water from the reservoir to the coffee basket fell out. It took me quite a while to find out how that fit together and when I finally figured it out and put it back in, I poured in more water and started a brew cycle (without coffee at first). But it leaked! There had been a seal around the pipe that fell out and I had either damaged the seal or put it in the wrong place. I tried re-seating it and that didn't work. I tried making a new seal with epoxy sealant and that stunk up the place and made the coffee smell bad.

Finally, someone else from the company figured out how the seal should be seated and it all worked. I think it took most of the day. And I never cleaned the coffee maker again. But at least they didn't fire me. I'm still here.

The pressure is on

I had my annual physical check-up last week. Things went pretty well. Even though I'm not in terrific physical shape, I do have the advantage of not needing to take any pills. Unlike most of my other 66 year old friends, I don't take pills for my heart and I don't take pills for cholesterol. In fact, I don't take any pills at all except for a daily vitamin (Centrum Silver because it was recommended by a pharmacist friend). I also drink a can of V8 juice every day and I drink two or thee glasses of apple cider every day. Is that why I'm relatively healthy? I don't know. I'm just glad for the health God has blessed me with.

But now my doctor has said that my cholesterol is getting close to the bad zone and he is threatening to prescribe a cholesterol pill if it doesn't improve. He has asked that I get my blood tested in three months and if I can't get the number back into the good zone, I may have to start taking a pill to help. He feels the best non-prescription way to do that is with more exercise. So, for the next three months, I've got a real incentive to start walking at lunch again.

Our new dog is keeping me active but I'm only walking about a half mile with her in the morning. It's too dark to walk after work so far. But I always used to walk about one and a half miles at lunch time at work and I hope to start doing that again. It has been really busy at work for that two years and I often need the time at lunch to get work done. But when it comes down to doing that or being healthy, I'm going to stay on the side of healthy.

We'll see how this goes. I could have started on Wednesday this week but I let other things take priority. But this week is it! I'm going to walk during every lunch I can.

Politically Correct

I'm going to set you straight on something. The term "Politically Correct" is misused almost everywhere. Most people say that we are being politically correct when we change the way we say something so that we won't offend someone or some group. No. That is being Socially Correct or, some would say, being nice.

No. Being Politically Correct is not being able to say, "We need better control of guns." Or not being able to say, "Why does any private citizen need to be able to buy an AR-15 and as much ammunition as they want?" I have just been politically incorrect because you are not allowed to say that.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

Sometimes you need to take your eye OFF the ball

Cropped view of full picture

I saw a funny story in Time Magazine about a fan who wanted to get a picture of a movie star he spotted while on vacation.

A father, on vacation with his family in Montauk, NY (at the far end of Long Island), recognized Matthew Broderick when he and his family stopped for snacks in a small store. He asked to get a picture of Mr. Broderick with his daughter. The only problem was Matthew Broderick had a friend with him who was in the picture, too. So, the father motioned for the friend to move out of the way. He was still in the picture so the father kept motioning for him to move further out of the picture. But finally, the friend could move no more so the father thought he would just crop the picture to only include his daughter and Matthew Broderick.

The full picture with Matthew's friend

As he was walking back to the car, his family was shouting to him about his mistake and what was he thinking? The full, uncropped picture is on the left. Matthew Broderick's friend, Jerry Seinfeld, is on the right! It's funny how you can miss a lot when you're focused on one thing. Not that getting a picture with Mathew Broderick wasn't a great thing to do but what about missing another terrific (or more specifically Super Terrific Happy) picture in the process? Sometimes you need to take your eye off the ball to see what is happening in the wide view.

The full picture is from the Twitter account @HonoredSpirit and can be found at this link.

Another nice thing about writing - part 2

I just thought of another comeback. Isn't this nice? You have as long as you want if you are doing the writing of the conversation.

So, in this one, a Nasty Looking Person has seen you looking in their direction. Maybe they were talking too loudly. Maybe they were saying something stupid. Maybe they were just making a fuss about something. Whatever it is, they have gotten your attention and you have looked their way. You haven't said anything but they take offense at your looking their way and Nasty Looking Person looks your way and ...

Nasty Looking Person (in a nasty voice): "What are you looking at?"

Our Hero: "Not much."

Another nice thing about writing

About six years ago, I wrote about a nice aspect of writing which is that you can win all the arguments. You can make conversations go the way you want them to go. I wrote a rather lame example - because I'm not a very good writer. But that doesn't stop me from writing! How else can you get better at something than to keep going and attempting to better?

So, here's a short example of what you can do if you're writing. It's never too late to write a comeback. Remember the Seinfeld episode when George Costanza can't think of a comeback to someone who insulted him until it's too late? Well, if you're writing the story, it's never too late. So here's my imagined conversation. An Obnoxious Person and Our Hero are having an argument and things start to get heated:

Obnoxious Person: "Don't get smart with me!"

Our Hero: "Well, one of us needs to be smart about this."

What do you think? Should I send this to Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld? Maybe they would consider bring back the series if they had such a great starter for an episode.

My mother would have been 93 today but...

As I've mentioned before, my mother died in 2016. The picture to the right is from July, 2003. This is one of the happiest times I can remember for her. We had adopted our daughter just a few months before this and this was my mother's first visit with her. She loved her grandchildren so much.

But I'm going to tell a funny little story about my mother. She always felt embarrassed about this but she also couldn't help laughing when she told it. And then she'd feel guilty right after laughing.

One day, she was driving through our town, off in the distance, she saw one of my cousins and a couple of his friends walking along the road. She wanted to say hello to them but they didn't seem to notice her as she waved so she drove closer to the side of the road. She must have been looking at them and not at what was in the road. Just as she got the closest to them, she beeped so they would look toward her and just then, she ran through a large water puddle and splashed them with a lot of water. She hadn't seen the puddle because she was focused on my cousin and his friends. They were surprised and she felt horrible. My cousin now says he doesn't remember this so it doesn't seem to have done any lasting damage to him.

The Last Jedi was terrific

I thought Star Wars: The Last Jedi was one of the best movies of the series. I know there are a lot of die-hard Star Wars fans who don't like many parts of the movie. But I really liked that I was fooled so many times by the story. I thought I had things figured out but was pleasantly surprised by what happened.

The action scenes were riveting and as we saw with other recent movies of the series, you couldn't be sure that everyone you've been rooting for will make it out alive. I liked that the main characters did not make flawless and correct decisions all the time. This movie seemed the most real to me. All the other movies in the series have this inevitable quality to them. There will be twists and turns but in the end, all the lead characters will make the right decisions and everything will turn out OK. It doesn't here. Even heroes are scared. Even the wisest make bad decisions from time to time.

One pivotal scene made a big impression on me. While Luke had chosen an extremely remote and hard-to-find world for his self-imposed exile, it wasn't a completely random choice. There is a Jedi temple there. The first Jedi temple containing the original, ancient texts of the Jedi Order. And Luke, after an agonizing realization, is about to destroy them. And the ghost of Yoda comes along and Luke expects him to stop him - but he doesn't! Yoda actually burns them saying no one reads them anymore anyway. They know what they said. Just keeping them around in the isolated location does nothing. It's a courageous decision but it's not like keeping those texts around help the Jedi Order. They were down to the their last two already and by the end end of the movie, they are down to their last Jedi.

We had to get a new car

Our car was hit by another car a week or so ago. It wasn't our fault and no one was hurt but our car was pretty badly damaged. You can see it in the picture to the right. We could still use the car but the passenger door was hard to close and we worried that it might not stay closed. So, we were looking forward to having the insurance company inspect it so we could get it fixed quickly. But, instead, the insurance adjuster said that due to our car's age (12 years) and number of miles (over 170,000), it wasn't worth repairing and totaled it. We would have to turn in the car and get what they said it was worth. But the amount they gave us would not have allowed us to get a car that was comparable to what we had. So, we decided to bite the bullet and just get a newer car on our own.
It doesn't seem fair that we could be going along fine with an old car that ran well. It certainly had its problems and was costing more to repair but the problems were familiar and it was manageable. Now, out of the blue, we are forced to take a lot of time filling out reports, taking time to look for which new cars were available that we could afford, visiting places with cars, trying them out, comparing what we saw, bargaining for a fair price and going through the hassle of changing everything over to a new car.

We have gotten used to the room we had in the van but we found that there was no way we could afford a van of a decent age and in any kind of decent shape. So, something like a cross-over or SUV was more what we'd need to get. We still couldn't afford a new cross-over or SUV but we finally found this 2015 Ford Escape that you can see in the picture to the left. Moving from a 2005 vehicle to a 2015 vehicle was quite an eye opener. All the cars we looked at had video screens on the dashboard. They all had back-up cameras. They all had a lot of nice standard features. Even though we bought an older car with the least amount of features as we could afford, we feel like we've moved up in the world. Now, if we can just make the payments!

Why are the old shows better than the new ones?

Well, my title is provocative and it's not necessarily true. Not all the old shows were better. There were a lot of bad ones but we tend to forget those. We only remember the good ones. And to consider a new show better, we have an accumulating list of really great shows for it to compete against. I like to read Earl Pomerantz's blog Just Thinking... and he brought up this point and I wrote an answer. I'll copy it below but I think I missed a few ideas so maybe I'll write some more about that in another post here. But for now, here is what I wrote:

Another thing about saying older movies and shows (and many other things) are better than recent attempts: Remember that each new entertainment or event must "compete" with a growing list of things that happened before. So, it gets harder and harder to be the best or the most memorable.

I thought about this during the recent cold spell when the weather man said it is harder to set new records in certain situations (like coldest high temperature) because of the accumulating range of temperatures in the past. Of course, we're doing our best to keep setting new high temperatures which leads to another thought on this whole "the older versions are better" idea. If humans can make new heat records by ignoring the past, we should be able to improve stories, movies and music by studying the past, learning from them and improving them.

So, maybe that's what helps make it harder to improving our movies, too. Fewer people are willing to study the past to learn what was done well and where the mistakes were made. How many musicians study the masters before going on with their own attempts? How many writers study the old stories and fables before writing their own? With film and TV, it's easier. The records are more clear and there is less history. And you're only going to see "the best movie ever" less often because it's still competing with The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad and the Odyssey, The Bible and I Love Lucy.

Our 24th Anniversary

Getting back into writing my blog is more difficult than I thought. Not only do you have to remember to write, you have to remember how to write! Getting your thoughts into print is a skill and it is easy to get out of practice. And when something is hard (or harder than it used to be), it is hard to get started. Also, when you know something is going to take a lot of time, it is difficult to allow yourself the time to do it.

All of that is a preamble to why this article is late. My wife and I have been married for 24 years. We were married on January 8, 1994 and I am writing this on January 10, 2018. But I am post-dating it to January 8 because that is day what this is about. The sad part is, this should be an easy post to write but I'm spending more time thinking about it and writing excuses than I am writing about our anniversary.

Not only is this post late but my gift to my wife will be late, too. We did shop for and buy a new ring for her but it needs to be resized and it won't be ready for a couple of weeks. I should have started earlier. I did get her a nice card and a small rose bush (to be planted in the spring) on time. But I'm not going to be adding the picture of the rose bush until even later!

We had a nice day. We went to our favorite Chinese buffet restaurant and got a great meal. Our kids came with us and enjoyed themselves, too. So January 8, 2018 was a nice day. And even two days later, I'm still feeling happy about it. And 24 years after marrying my wife, I'm even happier now than I was then - and I was very happy then. I highly recommend getting married if you find the right person to marry.

{Edit - I was going to add a picture of the miniature rose bush I bought my Sweetie for our anniversary but then I saw she had this picture from our wedding on her Facebook page. So, that's what you see here. It had snowed pretty heavily on the days before our wedding and a lot of people weren't able to make it. We ended up asking people at the last minute if they wanted to come to the reception due to so many people not being able to make it.]

Murder on the Orient Express was OK

I love trains. I love mysteries. I really like all of the actors and actresses in this movie. I should have really enjoyed Murder on the Orient Express but I only liked it. I knew how it was going to end (from seeing the 1974 version) but I've enjoyed other movies where I knew the ending so I figured that was no reason to not go. My family wanted to see it and I went with them.

The train was beautiful. The cinematography was wonderful. And there was an opening sequence (similar to the James Bond movies) that was really fun. I liked recognizing all the well-know actors and actresses as they entered but they just didn't seem to have any chemistry - with ANY of the other actors. I think I could have enjoyed this if some of the characters worked well together but it just seemed like each one was determined not to look less than the other characters so they didn't interact in a menacing or helpful or endearing way. They just said their lines and moved on. Johnny Depp was the biggest disappointment. He acted like a tough guy who was not tough at all. I wouldn't have been afraid of him and if I'm not scared, no one is scared.

Action scenes were added to try to make this more thrilling and I liked the idea of the train being stopped by an avalanche. If I would have just thought that there was real menace there, I might have bought into it but no one seemed like they really wanted to be the bad guy. Maybe they'll make another version sooner than 43 more years (I'll be 109 - maybe) and it will take a LOT more to get me excited about it then.

Let's make this a better year

I let myself get rattled by other events in 2017 and stopped updating this blog in January last year. I'm proposing to make a fresh start and write every few days this year.

I've learned a lot over the last year. I've seen a few good movies. I've read a few good books. I've grown in my journey to emulate Jesus Christ and the Spirit has given me insights into my failings, my strengths and what I should be doing. I've grown as a software engineer and I truly think I'm better at my job than I've ever been. I continue using the Java programming language for most of my work but I continue to learn and use Python and last year I found I will need to learn C# for one important project. I have some interesting projects to work on this coming year and, perhaps, I can write about what I learn (without being too specific and getting fired). There have been some terrific sermon series at our church this year and maybe I can write about some of those.

That's it for now. It's going to take some time to get back in the habit of writing here. I am very out-of-practice and it's surprising, to me, how much harder it is to put my thoughts into words now. Just like how my piano playing has declined because of my lack of practice. That's another thing I hope to do more this year. There is a chance for an open performance at a local library later this year and I'm going to try to work on a really nice arrangement of I'm Beginning to See the Light to perform there.