30 December 07 - 22:43I'll be home for Christmas
This year I managed to squeak out enough time to visit my Mother. She lives in North Dakota. Next March she will be 90 and she is just as good a person as she was when I lived at home. Mom always was a person who looked for logical explanations and methods for things to be done. She also believed in being polite and cognizant of the feelings of others. It is interesting to note that these character traits are still in place.
What is not in place is a youthful memory. My Mom struggles with memory issues which worsen with time. Fortunately there is some relief for the forgetfulness in the way of a prescription, but it is not perfect.
I was very happy to find that my Mother was able to take care of herself and get around. Both she and I wish she was a bit less forgetful.
In my mind, I can still be the little boy on the left (see picture).
Lincoln - default -
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26 December 07 - 23:36Old Lisbon
If you click on this picture you can view a copy of a map of Ransom County, North Dakota from the time period around 1910. (You probably will not be able to see the entire map, but you can right click the map and download it to your computer.) At this time I am collecting pictures of this area and am going to concentrate on pictures of Lisbon, ND 50 or mor years ago.
This small town is a model of what America once was. The town had its own creamery, flour mill, brick yard, concrete block factory, all manner of stores and shops, several hotels, a railroad connection, a chicken hatchery, an opera house, plus the usual assortment of bars, newspapers, churches, and so on.
The town has the same number of people today as it did in 1910, maybe a few more, but the town no longer has all that "stuff." Just like we are exporting our jobs to China due to greater interaction with the rest of the world, the automobile brought greater interaction with the surroundings and literally stripped down the small towns to the basics.
When I moved to this town in 1954 you could take a train (galloping goose, actually) or bus and get away from it all without a car. Today a car is pretty much required as there isn't any train or bus except for the Senior bus which will take you to the doctor and shopping every once in a while.
I pretty much believe in industry and local industry at that. I probably am even a protectionist, if that is still a thing someone can be.
More on the history of my home town later.
Lincoln - default -
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22 December 07 - 22:24Potpourri of weather
I drove up from Texas to visit my Mom and others in the family for Christmas. My Mom, one of my brothers, a nephew, a niece, and a handfull of people I know are in the vicinity. I have so far seen one brother (all that are available here, and the same for Moms (one). I also saw one other person I know while at dinner, and talked to a few who know who I am, but I haven't got a clue who they are.
The trip up is about 1000 miles, and a bit of change when I travel the most direct route. I like to drive through the night and snooze when I get tired. All of this happened as expected. The additional fun was the weather.
I got high winds in Kansas to the point that I had to slow down often when the snow whipped up so much I could not see. I even got a bit of blizzard in Nebraska, but it was mostly snow lifting over the road with light additional snowfall. In fact, I could see most of what was around me by the light of the nearly full moon, most of the time.
The best part of the trip was northern South Dakota on Interstate 29. I counted about a dozen cars in the ditch and passed by a fender bender just as the highway patrol was arriving. The reason was ice cover on the road. The trip can take as little as fifteen hours if there are no interuptions and everything works just right. This time it took 21 hours including a nap which ended up being quite cold. When I came to my Mom's place tonight the temperature was seven degrees.
That's right, seven. Lucky thing I had the coolant checked before I left. It still has 37 degrees to go before it gets jelled and I put in washer fluid good to 20 below.
Hey, I wish you were all here with me!! It is actually a winter wonderland for Christmas, the likes I have not seen for probably 10 years.
Merry Christmas.
Lincoln - default -
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18 December 07 - 23:33Hillary-arious
-=This is a Joke, Son=-
Hillary Clinton and her driver were cruising home along a country road one evening when an ancient cow loomed in front of the car. The driver tried to avoid it but couldn't.
The aged old cow was struck and killed. Hillary told her driver to go up to the farmhouse and explain to the owners what had happened and pay them for the cow.
She stayed in the car making phone calls.
About an hour later the driver staggered back to the car with his clothes in disarray.
He was holding a half-empty bottle of expensive wine in one hand, a huge Cuban cigar in the other. He was smiling happily and also smeared with lipstick.
'What happened to you,' asked Hillary?
'Well,' the driver replied, 'the farmer gave me the cigar, his wife gave me the wine, and their beautiful twin daughters kissed me passionately.'
What in the world did you tell them?' asked Hillary.
The driver replied, 'I just stepped inside the door and said, 'Hello, I'm Hillary Clinton's driver and I've just killed the old cow.'
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16 December 07 - 21:55Bah, humbug
One of the anchors of my youth was Christmas. The community I grew up in was full of Christian churches of every imaginable denomination and Christmas meant programs at church, programs at school, and our family Christmas "rituals."
Every year for each of the fall and winter holidays my Mom would put up decorations. Some parts of the decorating might be the same, but other parts would change. For example, at thanksgiving my mother would get out the little "Pilgrim Candles" which were about 3 inches tall and looked like pilgrims. For Halloween, there were the skeleton thingys, and for Christmas there was always a tree, and other typical decorations spread about the house.
We would get a magazine called "Christmas Ideals" which had beautiful photography in it. We would get fruitcakes from relatives, and fruit baskets. Every year we would get a new musical device from the Wilbert Vault Company. I especially liked the white twirling angel that played "Silent Night."
On Christmas eve we would eat oyster stew, sing Christmas carols, and then read the Christmas story from the bible. Once that was done we would go to and go to the midnight candle-light service at church. That night, if we had been good, Santa would come.
I miss that.
Lincoln - default -
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13 December 07 - 22:47Dumb and dumber Reporting
Not too many years ago I subscribed to the local daily newspaper, Time or Newsweek magazine, and sometimes papers from other places. I watched the evening news every night and made time in my day for it.
Not any more. I usually Google or Yahoo my news and frown when I read it. The mistakes made reporting scientific things (which the press loves since they come as neatly packaged press releases) is appalling and the idiotic misunderstanding of the basic operation of government in the country is further reason to be disturbed by the press.
On another topic related to the populace, the lovely wife recently described her jury duty. I was amazed to find that her jury gave a young, cute, large breasted 23 year old woman a "break" for DUI because they felt sorry for her. Yup, in addition to my wife the jury consisted of 10 men and one woman.... They felt sorry for the poor girl. A travesty, the job of a jury is not to dole out pardons or sympathy, it is to be objective. So is news reporting.
Here is an example of these two failures in one article by Kirk Semple of the New York Times. If he is not an idiot, he did not demonstrate it in his article today and the same for the jurors.
Quote----------------
New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE
December 14, 2007
U.S. Falters in Terror Case Against 7 in Miami
MIAMI — One of seven indigent men charged with plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago as part of an Islamic jihad was acquitted on Thursday, and a mistrial was declared in the prosecution of the six others after the jury said it was hopelessly deadlocked.
The outcome was a significant defeat for the Bush administration, which had described the case as a major crackdown on homegrown terrorists.
End of Quote------------
No, Kirk, you simple idiot, it is a defeat for you and I. The reason juries cannot understand this is because the average American is so stupid they cannot follow a trial on their own. the educational system in this country is a shambles, the ability to manufacture goods is in a shambles, and persons of the press, such as you are idiots.
Other than that, Kirk, have a nice day and get a life. Maybe go back to school and learn that everything that is a defeat for the Bush administration is a defeat for you, because he is acting on your behalf.
Oh, yes, I am sorry you are so stupid. Oops, sorry, I said that already....
Lincoln - default -
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10 December 07 - 23:04O-o-o-o-o Bitchy Woman
If you want your wife to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.
Marriage is grand -- and divorce is at least 100 grand.
Marriage is made in heaven. But so again, are thunder and lightning.
Married life is very frustrating. In the first year of marriage, the man speaks and the woman listens. In the second year, the woman speaks and the man listens. In the third year, they both speak and the neighbors listen.
When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one thing: either the car is new or the wife.
A couple came upon a wishing well. The wife leaned over, made a wish and threw in a penny. The husband decided to make a wish, too But he leaned over too much, fell into the well, and drowned. The wife was stunned for a moment but then smiled, "It really works!"
Every man wants a wife who is beautiful, understanding, economical, and a good cook. But the law allows only one wife.
I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.
A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished.
Marriage is when a man and woman become as one; the trouble starts when they try to decide which one.
Before marriage, a man will lie awake all night thinking about something you say. After marriage, he will fall asleep before you finish.
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09 December 07 - 23:21Do you have the balls to support this?
It's time to end the bullshit and solve our energy problems once and for all. We can either act decisively or be namby pamby. To be decisive involves tough choices. Here's how,
- Convert all natural gas power plants to coal power. Give governmental incentives, assign a technology level that is acceptable without question and cut the EPA crap, and require only American Technology and components.
- Require all new power plants to be nuclear plants. Give governmental incentives, protect the plants from challenges by the unenlightened, and require American Technology in all aspects of the content and components.
- Incent wind power projects which use 100% American Technology and get them up and running. Fasttrack new power line construction to the wind sites, and cut the red tape. 4) Set a minimum combined gas mileage of 30 mpg on any car, truck, SUV, or ANY vehicle used in a non-commercial activity.
- Tax any new or used vehicle sold which has an average mpg more than the national average fuel economy target and rebate taxes to any vehicle which gets better than the average. Put this on a sliding scale to magnify the incentive/disincentive aspect of the program.
What about high mileage cars, I say. Set a target to do it in 5 years. Make manufacturing of the large tank-like vehicles illegal, and only allow ultra-efficient vehicles to be manufactured. A rapid change in echnology required by the government? Why not, we did it with televisions, why not cars.
Here are a couple of great examples of what we can do right now. These vehicles do not have exotic technology involved and get great mileage. At the top left is the "Smart" Fortwo, a car to be manufactured by Daimler Chrysler. Fortwo is expected to get 40 miles per gallon, 60 mpg for the diesel version and is not a hybrid.
The second picture is of the Aptera, a car featured in the January 2008, Popular Science Magazine. This car is based on being extremely slippery in the airstream and has an extremely low coefficient of drag. This low drag, along with the low weight allows this hybrid to get 300 miles to the gallon. Think how such a national project would benefit us if managed properly. The only thing between energy independence and full satisfying employment is our need for huge cars.
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08 December 07 - 13:40Kosher Ham from New York in time for Hanukah
A New Yorker, Nancy Kay Shapiro snapped some photos of what may soon come to be a new crase in the land of Jews, Ham Sandwiches. Nancy saw the mistake last weekend Balducci's storeand pictures of the signs, then posted them on her blog.
You can see the pictures and Nancy's article here [LINK]. At the left is my simulation of what she saw. As my wife and daughter are Jewish, it is rather amusing for me to see a store, especially a store in New York, make a blunder like this. It does help us understand the lowest common denominator when it comes to businesses, however. Here we see another human mistake which some day lawyers will have eliminated. When that day comes we will no longer be able to laugh at the naivety of our fellow humans, because the legal system will have perfected us through judicious application of lawsuits. (No pun intended.)
Anyway, Balducci's changed the signs as soon as the error was noted. Still, it would have been fun to be there and see it first hand.
Thanks Balducci's and Nancy Kay Shapiro for making my day a little funnier.
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05 December 07 - 23:56The brain is mainly in the rain
Headline!!
Partial Recall: Why Memory Fades with Age [
LINK]
I just read the article whose headline and link are just above on the Scientific American website. Unfortunately I can't particularly figure the article out except to note that it is best to have your water movement along the axonal bundles looking more like a celery than a dyeblot in a bucket of water.
On the less technical side, I am into my 50's now and don't really feel any particular amount of forgetfulness beyond what I have felt all my life. I know my Mom battles with memory issues, or so she says, as have most of the family members on both my mother's and my father's side of the family. And most of us live into our eighties and ninties so we get a chance to be extremely forgetful in the later years.
Anyway, I have been giving memory a thought lately and now I forget what it was I wanted to say.
Later.
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04 December 07 - 22:12I'll sue ya!!!
If what I read is true I want to apologize to Dennis Quaid for the grumpy thoughts I had about him when I read this headline:
"Quaid sues over twins accidental overdose"
Although I do not agree with the lawsuit premise, I am certainly heartened to see a sensible nature to the suit. Here is what I mean.
The lawsuit is reportedly for the amount of $50,000 for unspecified damages and the amount is a reasonable sum. I commend Dennis and his wife for that decision. I am so very fed up with people who feel they need to get millions for burned groins from their own clumsiness and the like. However....
That is as far as I go with my agreement, while I am heartened by the temper shown in the area of amount, the target is wrong. The medicines are already labeled as to dose and the person who delivered the bottle was clearly at fault. But there is something here. Let's review....
You should be able to read a label in a hospital if you are given the job of retrieving medications. Don't for a minute think the bottle was not clearly labeled. At the top left you see two of the bottles by Baxter Healthcare Corporation. If you read articles describing the lawsuit against Baxter will find the basic theme to be that Baxter did not do enough to differentiate the two bottles. Let's take a look.
- Different color of blue label
- Different NDC Code number
- Different color protective cap
- Clear labels reading the number "10,000" versus the number "10" units (10,000 does not look like 10)
- Entirely different label lettering
- Box around 10,000 unit dosage designation
- Different bar code
- A memo to hospitals warning of previous errors while they figure out a way to make the bottles moron-proof
What in the hell more can Baxter do? Send a company representative to read the labels to hospital personnel?
Also, look at the picture to the right. These are four different bottles all containing the 10,000 milligram dose but in different sizes and from different drug companies. There are many many companies worldwide that make and distribute this drug.By the way, the lawsuit as the memo mentioned above attached to it. You can see it here [
Baxter memo]
The Baxter folks seem to have it more together than the movie star parents. Baxter Healthcare does not seem to be doing anything wrong here. The cause of the error is either a huge failure on the part of the worldwide drug industry to standardize bottles, labels, pill color, liquid color, powder color, etc. or a need for additional safety training at the hospital.
Except for these minor differences, I think Quaid and the wife are on track here.
By the way, I have nothing but sympathetic thoughts for them as parents and I hope the best for the twins. However, I hope the lawsuit goes terribly awry and haunts them for the rest of their lives. Some clear, honest thinking is needed here and lawyers will never provide that. You have to do it yourself.
Later.
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