HinesSight

Crazy Shirts model spotted at Salem dog park!

OK, let's add "Aspiring" at the start of the title for this blog post.

Because right now I am not an official model of Crazy Shirts clothing. But after Crazy Shirts executives see today's Salem (Oregon) dog park photo shoot, I expect a modeling contract will be in the mail.

(One negative omen, though: Crazy Shirts seems to be age'ist in its current choice of clothing models. On the positive side, there's a dog in this photo of a 2012 photoshoot.)

My own photoshoot was spontaneously organized by my wife, who asked for my iPhone after I cajoled Family Dog #2, Zu Zu, to jump up next to me on a Minto Brown Dog Park bench.

"So cute," Laurel said. I assume she was talking about me, even though she was looking at Zu Zu.

Fortunately for my modeling career, I was wearing my Ugly Tuna Saloona hat, a Chile-Dyed Pepper Dragon t-shirt, and Chocolate-Dyed Canton Sweatpants -- all from Hawaii-based Crazy Shirts, which has become my favorite clothing source (and I'm saying that only partly because I want to kiss up to the Crazy Shirts staff who choose catalog models; I really do love their clothes).

The first photo has some energy to it. However, the vibe I get is of an irritated dog about to bite a guy who's trying to pat it. Probably should omit this one from my Crazy Shirts portfolio.

The second photo turned out better, aside from Zu Zu's butt being crammed into my armpit. On the plus side, Laurel was standing far enough away to prevent the Crazy Shirts' advertising department from clearly seeing how old I am.

An improvement. However, Zu Zu's tongue seems to be sticking out and she isn't exhibiting a high degree of adoring behavior to her owner canine caretaker.

Ah, a big dog smile. And a dog lovingly facing in my direction, subtly encouraged by my right hand pressing into Zu Zu's neck. This photo should put me over the top, Crazy Shirts modeling contract-wise.

The photoshoot ended with some canine backsliding. However, I look pretty damn good, in my utterly subjective opinion. I then grabbed the camera and...

Took a single photo of Laurel with Zu Zu. Sadly for her own modeling career, Laurel isn't wearing anything from Crazy Shirts. 

(And sadly for mine, I don't see "Model" as one of the available career opportunities on the Crazy Shirts web site.)

Innocent bee swarm...or something more sinister?

Maybe I've read too many mystery novels, and watched too many junky murder movies. But...

I'm worried that there's more to this bee swarm than meets the eye. Especially since the swarm is right at eye level, on a branch overhanging a trail that Family Dog #1 and I walk on often.

As soon as I drove home yesterday and got out of the car, Laurel excitedly asked me if I had my iPhone with me. "Of course," I said. "Good. There's a bee swarm on the trail to the creek. My phone's battery is dead. I want you to take a photo of the swarm."

Nothing too suspicious in that request. But when I approached the swarm and told my wife, "No way am I getting any closer," she said "Bees are gentle when they're swarming. Don't worry. You can move nearer."

I noticed, though, that she was standing in back of me. Which got me to thinking...

Bee swarm. Right on the trail where I often walk. Her iPhone conveniently lost its charge. A wife urging her husband to get closer to a humongous bunch of bees. Why, this could mean...

My wife has fallen in love with a bee keeper. A specialist in killer bees. Who has genetically modified the killer bees to look like regular "nice" bees until they sense a pheromone within ten feet of the swarm. Which was surreptitiously sprayed on my hair while I was sleeping. 

Could be. Or, not.

So I'm playing it safe and keeping my distance from the possibly killer bees. Along with making notes for a screenplay to send off to the Lifetime channel. Tentative title of movie: "Sara's Killer Swarm."

Why we sold our Nissan Leaf and bought a Chevy Volt

Goodbye, dear Leaf. I had mixed feelings about seeing our Nissan electric car loaded onto an auto transport trailer a few days ago.

The car was on its way to a new owner in eastern Washington.

It needed a lift, given the Leaf's 100 mile range. I was happy to have sold the Leaf, since the Chevy Volt that we ordered to replace it is on a train at the moment and should arrive in a few weeks. Yet I enjoyed the Leaf and was sort of sad to see it go.

(As described below, my wife felt differently.)

After placing an Auto Trader ad for the Leaf, I got quite a few emails from people asking "Why are you selling the car?" Good question, since we only owned the Leaf for about eight months and it had just 3,000 miles on it.

Here's the detailed answer that I shared.

Our reasons for selling the Leaf are kind of unusual. Meaning, quite specific to us. My wife has a sensitive back. Even though she test-drove a Leaf several times before we bought ours, almost as soon as we got the Leaf home she started feeling uncomfortable in the front seats. That's the main reason we had leather put on the seats, added some firmness to the driver's side seatback, and got the electrically activated lumbar supports in the front seats.

My wife also didn't like the front headrests, which, like on most new cars these days, are angled forward in an attempt to reduce the "whiplash" distance in an accident. So after some negotiating with Nissan, we were able to buy some headrests from another Nissan car that are much more upright. Thus we have two sets of leather headrests that will go with the car when we sell it.

I found the Leaf seats comfortable. Researching this subject on Leaf discussion groups, I learned that some people don't like the seats, while most people do. Consumer Reports thought they were somewhat soft and lacked support. Adding leather and the other things we did helped quite a bit, but my wife still gets some back pain when driving the Leaf. (She also has trouble with many mattresses and chairs, her back being quite sensitive.) So that's one reason.

Another reason -- and this only will make sense to you if you're an avid dog lover, or know someone who is -- is that when the rear seats are folded, the Leaf "luggage" compartment slopes downward toward the hatch, because of the battery stack in the middle of the car. Our oldest dog is 12 1/2 years old. She's getting some hip problems, being a Lab/Shepherd mix. Our dog tilts downhill when she's on the pad that we put in the luggage compartment. Pretty clearly, she doesn't like riding in the Leaf as much as she likes to ride in our Mini Cooper or Highlander SUV. This might not seem like a big deal to you, but you don't know how dog crazy my wife is.

Lastly, we live about six miles from the Salem city limits, out in the country. Even so, range in the Leaf hasn't been a big issue. When the Leaf is fully charged, usually it shows an estimated 100 miles of range, or thereabouts. That's a lot of driving, even starting six miles from Salem -- where we do most of our shopping, errands, and such. Range, though, drops to 80 miles or so in the winter if it's near freezing, given the need to use the heater, wipers, and headlights more. So a minor issue added on to the more important "seat comfort" and "dog" issues is range.

We've ordered a Chevy Volt, which is being built for us. It's supposed to arrive in late May or early June. We're staying electric. But the seats in the Volt feel more comfortable to my wife, and the luggage area where our dog(s) will go is completely flat. That's why we're selling the Leaf. I might have told you more than you need, or want, to know, but felt that if you're thinking of a Leaf, it would be helpful for you to fully understand why we're selling it.

Obviously, it's also got a lot of plus's. Aside from the environmental benefits, freedom from gas stations, and low cost of "filling up," I like the light, quick, airy, high-tech feel of the car, even though I mostly drive my Mini Cooper S. Meaning, I like a responsive sports car feel, yet the Leaf has its own distinctive driving appeal. The Volt feels more sporty, yet the Leaf has an air of quietness (literally, road noise is less in the Leaf than in the Volt), responsiveness, and openness (Leaf feels more spacious than the Volt, and visibility is better) which I like a lot.

Ignoring chainsaw safety tips pays off for stupid me

Sometimes doing a bunch of stupid stuff can add up to something sort of smart, like how multiplying two negative numbers produces a positive result.

Yesterday I broke quite a few chainsaw safety rules. But if I hadn't ignored all of them, I probably would have gotten hurt.

Chain saw stupidity... let me count the ways.

(1) I stood on the top of a folding ladder while using the chainsaw.
(2) I held the chainsaw high over my head while cutting.
(3) I did the work with nobody else close by. 
(4) I failed to consider how a branch could snap back after being cut.

I probably ignored some other chainsaw safety rules also. Not smart. 

I've got a healthy respect for chainsaws, having heard horror stories from people a lot more skillful with them than myself, including a couple of pros who handled damage to a very large oak tree on our property a few years ago. 

These guys laughed while relating a story about how one of them got whacked in the forehead by the very same small Stihl chainsaw model that I own. The tale was indeed funny... in retrospect. But there's nothing humorous about a chainsaw injury, which I've managed to avoid so far.

Even yesterday -- when we had bark dust blown into our non-easycare yard, as we've had done every spring the past three years. The bark and two man crew arrived in a large truck which always has difficulty navigating our narrow, steep, tree-lined driveway.

After the driver backed in almost as far as our carport, I congratulated him. "I'm getting better at it," he said. "There's still a problem with some tree limbs, though."

Looking at the side of the tall truck, I saw what he meant. He'd managed to back in by pushing some fairly substantial (2" thick, or so) protruding oak branches out of the way, along with some smaller fir branches. 

They were pushing against the right side of his truck. I told him, "I'll cut them while you spread the barkdust. Then they'll be out of the way when you leave, and next year it'll be easier for you to get the truck down our driveway."

Good intention. It was the execution that was the problem. 

The more I've used my pleasingly light Stihl chainsaw, the more comfortable I've become with breaking some standard safety rules. Like, not cutting anything above shoulder height. So I took a quick glance at the branches, figured I could reach them if I stood on a folding ladder and stretched my arms out, and got out the equipment that I needed.

Chainsaw. Ladder. Gloves. Safety glasses. Ready to go.

What I should have done, though, is spend more time pondering the position of the thickest oak branch. Semi-consciously I assumed that just the very end of it was being bent back against the side of the truck. However, actually the entire branch was under quite a bit of backward pressure.

That could have been bad news if I'd been following the safety rule: do not operate a chainsaw above shoulder height. Because if I'd leaned an extension ladder against the truck and climbed up until my head was higher than the branch, I'd have gotten a nasty physical shock to add to my mental surprise.

Wow! I thought, watching and feeling the oak branch snap backward with surprising force after the chainsaw had cut most of the way through the wood.

I was happy that the branch had whipped over my head, not into my head (or neck/chest). I wasn't pleased, though, with how the chain had gotten stuck in the cut.

I was still holding onto the chainsaw with my right hand, leaning backward now on the folding ladder, rather than forward, owing to how much the branch had moved after most of the pressure had been released from being against the side of the truck.

I pulled on the blade. Stuck. I pulled harder. Still stuck. What the hell, I said to myself. Done everything wrong up to this point; might as well keep going. 

I decided my best bet (though perhaps not the smartest one) was to try to cut the branch completely through from my precarious leaning one-handed position on the ladder. At first the chain wouldn't turn at all. After a few more tries, it did. The end of the branch dropped to the ground. The part of the branch still attached to the tree snapped back a few more feet.

Hey, that wasn't so bad, said my overly optimistic self. I got off the ladder, pulled the cut branch out of the way, and moved to the next branch that was stuck against the truck. And after that, another one.

Here's the most amazing part of my chainsaw cutting adventure: basically the same thing happened with the next two branches. Guess I'm a slow learner. The branches snapped back after being cut most of the way through, but the chain didn't get caught, and I was a lot more mentally prepared for the whoosh.

Better to be lucky than smart, I guess. Better yet, though, lucky and smart. Next time I use my chainsaw I'll do more thinking about what I'm doing before I do it.

"You look like Richard Branson." Nice compliment.

Though I'm irked at Hawaiian Airlines for dropping its non-stop Portland, Oregon to Maui flight, on our return from Honolulu a few days ago a Hawaiian employee made me feel really good.

I'd forked out an extra $70 for two seats in an exit row, where I'd stretched my legs in comparative comfort for the five hours it took to cross the western Pacific. As we started our descent into Portland, a flight attendant sat down in the jumpseat that faces backwards across from the exit row.

Looking at me, she said, "I've been thinking for the whole trip that you remind me of someone. A little while ago I figured it out -- the guy who runs Virgin Atlantic, you know, um..."

"Richard Branson!" I blurted out, all excited. "Except, he's blonder, tanner, and better looking. Thanks, though."

She added, "I kept wondering why Richard Branson would be flying coach on Hawaiian Airlines." Good point. Unless he was thinking of buying the airline (which I'd be heartily in favor of, if he brought back that direct Portland-Maui flight).

My wife diplomatically said, "Yes, there's a bit of a resemblance." OK, I guess. I just scrolled through quite a few pages of Richard Branson images on Google. I didn't find many that made me think, "That's me."

Yeah, there's a bit of me reflected in this expression. Branson is just a few years younger than I am, which makes me wonder about his decidedly less gray appearance.

And there's a mild resemblance here. Again, there'd be more if Branson was as naturally gray as me.

Sadly, I can't recognize any commonality between me and Richard Branson in this photo. I suck at anything having to do with water skiing. Having a beautiful naked woman hang onto me would make my suckedness even worse, leaving us both in the water (not a distasteful notion, though).

So in the end, I'll preserve a fond memory of the flight attendant's comments through this blog post, but I won't expect to be treated like royalty if I ever fly on Virgin America/Atlantic.

(Note: over on my other blog I've shared some photos of our trip to Maui, along with life lessons learned on tropical beaches.)

Hawaiian Airlines drops non-stop Portland-Maui flights, so we drop Hawaiian

Most likely, yesterday we took our last flight on Hawaiian Airlines. For about twenty years we've flown direct from Portland, Oregon to Maui. In January 2012 Hawaiian dropped non-stop Portland-Maui flights. 

So my wife and I are going to drop Hawaiian. We had lots of frequent flyer miles accumulated through our usually-annual flights to Maui, supplemented by our habitual use of a Hawaiian Airlines VISA card, which gave us one mile for every dollar charged.

This year we used up almost all of our frequent flyer miles to buy "free" tickets for a flight to Maui that required a plane change in Honolulu. Ugh. Never again.

From now on we'll fly Alaska Airlines' non-stop to Maui from Portland. And cancel our Hawaiian VISA card. Hawaiian Airlines made a bad business decision. 

Have you enjoyed direct flights from Maui to Portland on Hawaiian Airlines? That service is about to end. Beginning mid-January, you will need to make connecting flights through Honolulu.

This move is bad for Maui tourism. Nonstop service is what attracts visitors to the Neighbor Islands. With fewer options for direct flights, tourists who understand the consequences of connecting flights will opt for a different airline or a different locale to visit.

The Portland flights always seem full, but if statistics show otherwise, why drop the number of days for the direct service to zero? We understand that difficult business decisions sometimes need to be made, but we don't understand the wisdom of deserting an existing market entirely.

Yesterday we asked a Hawaiian Airlines employee why the non-stop flight was cancelled.

"I have no idea," we were told. "The company doesn't tell us employees anything. The direct flights were almost always full. People liked them. Now we're losing business travelers who can't get to Maui early enough to do a full day's work. You should write Hawaiian and complain."

For sure. I'm going to.

Maybe it won't make any difference, but the more people who gripe about losing the non-stop Portland to Maui flight, the more Hawaiian Airlines will realize that whoever dreamed up this stupid move made a bad decision.

From a Facebook page, I learned that Mahalo@HawaiianAir.com is an email address to send complaints to. And the above-quoted letter from The Maui News says, "Leona Duarte at the airline is accepting email from affected travelers/businesses, Leona.Duarte@HawaiianAir.com" So I'm going to send my message to both email addresses.

I'm going to let Hawaiian Airlines know that it was much less enjoyable to fly to Maui through Honolulu. Yesterday my wife and I left Maui pretty much on schedule at 12:45 pm. Our flight to Portland left Honolulu about twenty minutes late, around 3:00 pm. 

So we spent over two hours getting farther away from Portland. Which meant that by the time we got our bags and hopped on the Park N' Fly shuttle, it was after midnight. Living as we do in south Salem, we didn't get home until close to 2:00 am. 

Not fun. Not compared to the non-stop Portland-Maui flights that we and so many others had come to like so much.

The Hawaiian Airlines employee we talked with had the same attitude as I did: "It just isn't right that now a lot more Oregonians are going to be flying on Alaska Airlines to Maui. Getting to Hawaii should be on Hawaiian Airlines."

I agreed. Wholeheartedly.

My wife and I love the service and island-atmosphere on Hawaiian. More than that though, we love not wasting hours of our time making an unnecessary stop in Honolulu -- which is an unattractive, poorly designed airport with horrible eating options for health-minded vegetarians like us. 

Hawaiian Airlines likely is about to feel the full impact of disgruntled formerly loyal customers. As mentioned above, we've now used up almost all of our frequent flyer miles. From now on, we'll use Alaska Airlines for our annual vacations on Maui.

Good bye, Hawaiian. We've enjoyed your company for several decades. But your inexplicable decision to drop all direct flights to Maui from Portland is causing us to embrace Alaska. Change your ways, and we'll probably come back into your arms wings.

Not if you continue to make us fly through Honolulu, though.

Thanks to Obama, I'm going to stop saying "that's so gay!"

Yesterday I was thrilled to learn that President Obama has come out (so to speak) in favor of gay marriage. This is a good move ethically as well as politically. 

Homosexuals are people too, Mitt Romney and fellow gay-bashing Republicans. Recognizing the obvious will energize Obama's base, and it won't cost him many votes since homophobes already plan to vote against him.

Eugene Robinson ends his column on this subject with:

Politically, Obama may have taken a big step toward reclaiming the future.

The magic of hope and change that suffused his 2008 campaign has dissipated after 40 grueling months in office. Obama’s supporters could point to his accomplishments and cite the reasons why Romney would be a poor replacement, but the optimism and excitement were missing.

Obama could have kept silent on gay marriage, and frustrated progressives would still vote for him. Instead, he spoke out when he didn’t have to and took a stance that might hurt him in key states — reminding us how he can surprise and inspire.

Did I just catch a whiff of that hopey-changey stuff in the air?

For sure. I've already vowed to make a change in my habit of blurting out what I now realize is a slur: that's so gay!

Here's an example.

In the past, my wife has tried to get me to buy a Jams World shirt when we've gone to Maui. She likes the Jams World clothing line. High quality; made in Hawaii; kind of expensive, but not super-outrageous given what you get for your money.

Almost universally -- coincidentally, up until yesterday, the day Obama stated his new position on gay marriage -- I've responded to her pointing out a men's Jams World shirt I should consider buying with Oh, no, that's so gay!

Now, I've had good reasons for saying that. Check out the retro Jams World flambe.

lt just isn't me. Most of the time I wear gray and black combinations, often from Hawaii's other cool clothes purveyor, Crazy Shirts. My taste runs more toward a dark-themed macho Chinese dragon or big breaking wave, not pink flowers.

Still, I also like colorful shirts. Yesterday my wife showed me a Jams World shirt that was much more subdued than the one above. I ended up buying it. However...

My first reaction, more from habit than anything else, was to tell her that's so gay when she said, "I like this Jams World shirt." I kept my mouth shut, though. Partly because we were in a public place and I no longer feel comfortable saying that's so gay, in the same way I wouldn't say that's so black. 

And partly because I had just learned about Obama's gay-friendly words a few hours before. I was enthused by them. I felt that the United States had taken a big step toward ending discrimination against homosexuals. 

Which has been a long time coming. 

Back in my high school years, 1962-66, us guys taunted each other with faggot! There weren't any openly gay students in my high school. Any guy who looked or acted too feminine was teased mercilessly. We had essentially zero compassion for gays.

So I was astounded to read what Mitt Romney said about his own (much worse) gay-bashing experience, given that we are almost exactly the same age.

“I don’t remember that incident,” Romney said, laughing. “I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s, so that was not the case."

Ridiculous. Back in the 1960's attitudes were hugely different toward homosexuals than they are now. Almost certainly Romney is trying to erase and excuse his past, as he so often does.

My past is still with me.

I wasn't so clearly aware of that until yesterday, when I caught myself about to say that's so gay! Yes, it seems that there is a certain gay style, though I can't describe it exactly. Likewise, there is a certain black style, though I also can't describe it exactly.

But my use of that's so gay had a homophobic edge to it. I was afraid of looking like I was gay. I didn't want people to think, "Only a gay guy would wear that shirt." 

Why? Why couldn't I simply say to my wife, that shirt doesn't appeal to me; too pink, too bright?

That's what I'm going to say now. No more that's so gay. Of such small steps revolutions are made. May we have legal gay marriage all across the United States soon.

Here's the Jams World shirt that I bought. I've worn it several times. No one has asked me if I'm gay.

In the unlikely event someone does, I'll respond, "Yes. You must have been able to tell from the Jams World shirt. Very observant. By the way, please support gay marriage. We gays deserve equal rights. Along with nice clothes."

Oregon weather breaks my May heart... then heals it

Oregon weather, I'm fed up with you. I've had enough abuse. This afternoon I realized that I can't stand you anymore.

Driving around in south Salem, I just had to pull over, grab my iPhone, and document what a crappy companion you've become. 

Come on! You're ridiculous! My Mini's thermometer doesn't lie. The warmth between us is gone. You're giving me 43 degrees. That's cold any time. Especially...

When the time is 12:50 pm -- middle of the freakin' day! -- on May 4. Spring. In fact, late spring. Yeah, I'd been listening to the "Chill" station on Sirius satellite radio. But that doesn't entitle you to make the outside what I'm grooving to on the inside.

Speaking of outside, Ms. Oregon Weather, this is what you looked like when you were giving me that 43 degree frigid treatment. You've gone gray. And blah. And all rainy weepy. I don't find you attractive any more. It's over!

Oh, sweetheart... I'm sorry for those harsh words. When I got home, after being so pissed-off at you, my heart melted when I saw how beautiful you can be in your sunnier moments.

Thanks for the flowers. I'm going to do my best to work things out with you.

Oregon Weather, my dear, you're an alluring creature. Hellish to live with when you're nasty; heavenly when you choose to be seductive.

My photographic evidence that the world's alright

There's a lot wrong with the world. No doubt about that. But I've accumulated some photographic evidence on my iPhone which shows how alright things are also.

Along with some fellow Trader Joe's-loving friends, we've been worried about how well the recently-opened Salem, Oregon store is doing. Seems like it isn't very crowded whenever I shop there.

But when I glanced into the blue/green glass bin at the D&O Garbage recycling center a few days ago, I thought Alright! 

Tossing my own Charles Shaw (Trader Joe's famous $2.49 wine) bottles into the bin, I was struck by how many similarly labeled bottles -- with the square dark logo on a white label -- already were in it.

And the photo above was taken just after another recycler who had different wine tastes had dumped a large bag of other brand bottles into the front of the bin.

Here's a close-up of the back of the bin that gives a more accurate portrayal of how "Two Buck Chuck" is dominating south Salem's wine bottle recycling bin. If our local Trader Joe's store is selling as much other stuff as it's selling Charles Shaw wine, the store is doing just fine.

Next, not long ago I was short on time and in desperate need of a heavily discounted 16 ounce cup of coffee in my own mug (sitting on the curb in the photo above) from the downtown Beanery.

Love your massive 35 cent discount, Beanery! Starbucks sucks with its measly 10 cents off.

I scanned the parking spots as I drove down Court Street, worrying that I was going to be late for a dog training class that my wife wanted me to attend with her if I had to walk a ways to feed my caffeine addiction.

Then I saw it: Alright!

A "Small Car Only" sign. No problem with my Mini Cooper. Not only no problem, I had lots of room to spare (note the distance between the rear bumper and the white line marking the end of the spot).

Mini Coopers rule. If we all drove them, imagine how less crowded our roads would be. Plus, they'd seem oh-so-European.

Lastly, I assume that you, along with most of the rest of the millions (or billions?) of people who were astonished at the news that our dog had cloned herself, have been waiting to learn whether the clone and the original have continued to get along.

As you can see from the photo above, absolutely. All together now...

Alright!

My iPhone speaker survives toilet water. Here's how.

I wish I had a better story involving wild sex, drugs, or fighting off a home invasion about how my beloved iPhone 4 ended up in a toilet this morning. 

Actually...I'd put the phone on some magazines that were headed to the recycling bin. Forgetting where the phone was after, um, I'd done my (stand-up) business, I grabbed the magazines from a counter and heard a highly disturbing splash as the phone hit the water.

Moving as fast as my semi-awake 63 year-old self does that early in the day, I had the phone out of the toilet in just a few seconds.

Luckily, it was snugly enclosed in both an Incipio semi-rigid "bumper" case, and an utrasuede/leather Waterfield slip-in case (highly recommended for slip-in afficionados; great case). So after toweling off the mildly wet iPhone, I decided to turn the phone on and see if it was going to explode in a shower of sparks.

Nope.

I was pleased to see that the phone worked fine. Seemingly. Except when I fired up my Solitaire app and started to play a game. It worked, but absent the clicking sounds that accompany a card turn. Shit! I thought.

Which turned to double and triple Shit! when I found that You Tube videos played, but with no sound. And I could make a phone call to my wife where she could hear me, but I couldn't hear her through the usual phone speaker -- only when I changed to speakerphone. With earbuds, sound could be heard fine through the headphone jack.

That led me to a panic-stricken Google search.

Where I found "How to fix the iPhone speaker problem (water damage)." The simple advice was to strip some cotton off of the end of q-tips, insert them into the headphone jack, rotate, and remove. I did this several times, with no success (other than getting the headphone jack really clean).

I also read the comments on that post, plus the accompanying You Tube video.

These led me to a couple of other attempted fixes: inserting a credit card in the charging slot at the other end of the phone from the headphone jack, and blow-drying the headphone jack. I also blow-dried the charging slot for good measure.

I don't know what worked, one, some, or all of these fixes. Regardless, after the last blow-drying my iPhone had recovered it's soundability. Bliss! I kept playing my "Brazilian Girls" album to confirm that everything was back to normal. 

So give these tips a try if your own iPhone gets wet and refuses to speak to you. The q-tip approach makes sense.

Some commenters on the post surmised that water (a short?) makes the iPhone think headphones are being used, so the external speaker is turned off. I seemed to see a brief message to this effect ("headphones") appear when I started to play "Brazilian Girls" before the phone was back to normal.

If you use a blow dryer, be judicious and don't run it too long.

I left my iPhone on a counter with the dryer on high pointing at it from about six inches way. When I checked back after a few minutes the metal phone casing was really hot. When I tried to turn on the phone, I got a "too hot to use; allow to cool" sort of message. After I waited a while, the iPhone worked normally, so maybe it was the final blow-drying that did it. 

Just don't overdo it, or you might have a bigger problem than a speakerless phone -- a cooked phone.

Metallic coolness & great benefits: Chase Sapphire Preferred card

Up to now I've taken my credit cards pretty much for granted. They've been pieces of plastic which have simply done their job: paying for stuff I want to buy, and giving me frequent flier miles on Hawaiian or United Airlines.

But after Hawaiian dropped it's direct flight from Portland, Oregon to Maui (where we vacation frequently), the luster of our Hawaiian card dimmed dramatically. Even before that happened, I looked around for an awards card that could be used on any airline, for any sort of trip.

And settled on the Chase Sapphire VISA card, which I extolled in a 2010 post.

A few months ago, Chase sucked me into upgrading to the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. The $95 annual fee was waived for the first year. I liked the benefits that come with the card, which include a 7% annual point dividend, and 20% off travel booked through Chase Ultimate Awards. 

When the Preferred card arrived, I discovered another benefit (though some find it a drawback). The card is unusually heavy, because it is made of metal, not plastic. And the numbers are on the back, not the front.

It gets a lot of attention from credit card-familiar store clerks. More often than not, when I use it I hear "Wow, that's a heavy card," or simply "Cool." 

But today I learned that the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is more than a pretty face. It can do some heavy travel-lifting also. My wife has been figuring out airline arrangements for a family reunion in Indiana this summer. This involves some complexities, as she is going to stop off in Wisconsin on the way back to see some old friends.

I told her that since we've accumulated quite a few points on our Chase credit card, we should try out the Ultimate Awards airline booking service. The result, after an initial glitch (apparently caused by the online reservation system being out of service for a while), was excellent.

Making reservations for both of us, including selecting seats on each flight, was at least as easy as any other online system I've used, whether through Orbitz or an airline. There's no extra booking cost. And we did indeed get a 20% discount when we paid for our tickets.

Meaning, Chase's Ultimate Rewards system adds on 20% to the points we redeemed for the airline tickets, thereby making my ticket 20% cheaper (because we had enough points to pay for all of my ticket, though only part of my wife's -- the difference being paid for through, of course, a charge to our Chase Sapphire Preferred card).

So I can heartily recommend this card to those who use a credit card a lot and want a highly flexible rewards plan. For us, the $95 annual fee is less than the monetary benefits we'll get every year from the card.

Plus, it looks and feels way cool.

Great deal on used Nissan Leaf -- here in Salem, Oregon

Car has been sold. Sorry. Hope you find another used Leaf. 

The all-electric Nissan Leaf is a terrific car. It's just turned out to be a less-than-ideal fit for our lifestyle. We live about six miles from the Salem city limits, so we use up twelve miles of range just getting to the edge of town.

Plus, our aging dog doesn't seem to like the sloping Leaf hatch compartment (it slopes because of the mid-car battery stack).

While that may not seem to be a big deal, you don't know how dogcentric my wife is. Whenever we look at a new car, one of the first things we do is tell the salesman we need to put our dog in it to see if she can stand up easily.

So we've ordered a Chevy Volt, wanting to keep ourselves in the electric car world, and put up an Auto Trader ad for our 2011 Leaf with only 3,000 miles on it. 

As I say in the ad...

Leather seats! Level III quick charger! ... If you want a Leaf, our car is a great deal. We added aftermarket leather seats and electrically-activated adjustable lumbar support ($1500 value). And this is a 2011 SL-E with the Level III quick charge port for full charging in about 30 minutes ($700 value).

Of course, the car also has the usual SL features. Navigation. Back-up camera. Intelligent Key entry. Level I and II charging. Bluetooth. Solar panel spoiler. Etc. Etc. Our Leaf has some dealer-installed options: all-weather rubber mats (hey, we live in Oregon), bumper protector, splash guards, cargo floor organizer.

At the time of this ad placement, there are twenty-five 2011 Leaf SL's for sale via Auto Trader in the entire country. Average asking price is $30,914. Ours is $27,995, about $3,000 LESS. Yet our Leaf has over $2,000 worth of MORE features -- the leather seats, lumbar support, Level III quick charger. 

Someone who wants to buy a Leaf for about $10,000 less than a new 2012 model should find our offer really attractive.

Not everybody can make full use of the $7,500 federal tax credit (Oregon also has a $1,500 state tax credit). And the credit can't be taken on a new Leaf until the person's 2012 tax return is filed a year from now.

Our used Leaf has everything useful a 2012 Leaf has, aside from heated seats/steering wheel/mirrors. I don't consider the 2012 battery heater (which is only needed in really cold weather) and the rear HVAC duct to be truly useful.

And our car has leather seats plus electrically-activated lumbar support in the front seats.

Consumer Reports noted that the Leaf's seats aren't very comfortable, which we agree with. That's why we had leather put on the seats by Beaverton's Coach Automotive Accessories, who did an excellent job. Again, a $1,500 value.

Our Leaf can be easily driven home within an 80 mile or so range.

So if you live in Portland, Corvallis, Eugene, or thereabouts, and are looking for a Leaf, head over to the Auto Trader ad and check out our car.

The car also can be shipped via an auto transport company for not a whole lot of money -- way less than a buyer will be saving by getting our used Leaf. And since our car has a fast Level III charger, this offers more options for getting the car home.

Our trail camera captures...Nursing fawn! Coyotes! Bucks!

See 'em here. Absolutely free. No waiting. 

Amazing (well, sort of) sights of animals in the wild, captured by our trail camera, which is ably managed by my wife, Laurel.

She moves it around to where she thinks critters on our rural western Oregon property are most likely to do their critter'ing.

Got some pretty good shots of...

 

A fawn nursing. Awwww... So cute.

 

A buck prowling around in the daytime.

 

Deer twins. More cuteness.

 

A raccoon family making a nightime excursion.

 

A coyote in our lower field.

 

Another shot of a coyote.

A still photograph of a deer, posing nicely for the camera.

Sadly, our adopted dog didn't work out (too fearful)

There were tears. More than a few. In fact, I'm feeling some start to flow right now as I begin to write about us having to return Pooka to the rescue shelter yesterday.  

She was only in our life for three weeks, a young dog with a wonderful personality who my wife and I came to love. It turned out, though, that she didn't work out for us. Too fearful.

We were so hopeful that we could give Pooka a good home after we adopted her. She had a rough early life, being taken in by a "Saving Paws" rescue shelter in Gig Harbor, where we returned her yesterday after a long, sad, windy, rainy drive from Salem.

Laurel sobbed after Pooka was led away. I guess I saved my tears for today, though I also shed some after we'd come to the conclusion that Pooka couldn't stay with us permanently. 

In an attempt to deal with an emotionally wrenching situation, Laurel and I are trying to look upon those three weeks as a foster family experience for Pooka. We gave her some good training. We did our best to allay her fears about how scary life is. We left a description of Pooka's pluses and minuses with the shelter, hoping this would encourage someone else to adopt her soon. 
Download Pooka info for Saving Paws of WA 

Excerpt:

She eventually became quite affectionate with us, and loved having her tummy rubbed and being scratched, even vying for affection when our other dog was getting it. She would playfully mouth people when excited, but in an affectionate way, and allowed her feet to be wiped, and did not seem aggressive at all, even when very scared. 

Numerous attempt to socialize her, even gradually, to places where other people were present, such as parks, or walks on the street where people were encountered, brought on severe fear reactions: tucked tail, shaking, either freezing in place or trying to flee, and even diarrhea on a few occasions. This did not seem to improve much in the time we had her, but we were advised by a professional trainer to back off and expose her far more gradually to such situations. She will likely need either extremely patient and slow exposure to public situations, or just life in a home with a quiet yard, and minimum of new people coming and going from the home. 

She is smart and very motivated for food treats, and even kibble. Within just a few days of positive reinforcement training sessions in our quiet yard or house, she learned sit, down, stay, and to chase (but not pick up) a ball. 

In the right situation, she could probably make a loving pet, as long as the owner is aware of, and willing to accept that her fear of new people and situations may never completely disappear. 

We live in the country on ten largely unfenced acres. We go hiking a lot. Quite a few times a year we spend time at a cabin with no fenced yard. Our current twelve-year old dog is calm, friendly, and fully trained. It just would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for Pooka to fit in with our lifestyle. 

It may never have been possible for Pooka to be trusted off leash. She would freak out, big time, shivering and shaking, when people, bicycles, cars, other dogs, or another unexpected stimulus popped up. 

My wife knows a lot about dogs. She's a top-level (red) volunteer dog walker at the Willamette Humane Society. Laurel has taken many dog-training classes and read many dog-training books. But she couldn't make much progress with Pooka.

After a few weeks we asked an expert dog trainer for advice. She told us, in part:

Yes, dealing with an extremely fearful dog is a long row to hoe, and is quite tedious. Some dogs are more resilient than others, so some come out of their shell easily and become more confident in a shorter amount of time, and others can take a really long time to improve. It sounds like Pooka might be one that is slower to build confidence.

If you feel that she is more of a project than you are capable of, that's ok. I know that we dog people -- especially people like us that work with shelter dogs -- are reluctant to give up on a dog, but as you know, not every dog is right for every person. If you were hoping for a dog that can go out-and-about with you on little adventures (park, hiking, etc.), then a fearful dog is likely not the best match.

Driving to Gig Harbor yesterday, most of the way there we listened to the audio book version of Patricia McConnell's excellent "For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend."

It made us feel better to hear McConnell talk about a sheep dog she adopted, and came to love, who didn't work out on her ranch. There were too many distractions (including a nearby busy road) for this easily distractable dog. She found a home for the dog with another sheep rancher. The dog turned out to be a good fit for him.

So even dog experts can't change behavior that is tied to the basic personality of a dog. Pooka is going to be a great dog for someone who, for example, has a fenced back yard and will take her for walks in a fairly quiet area on a leash. Maybe someday Pooka could be trusted off-leash after a lot of work, but maybe not.

Pooka will be the right dog for the right person. More than right... a wonderful dog.

She's intelligent, friendly, house-trained, expressive, and cute. Also, fearful. We deeply hope someone will adopt her soon who is able to take the many Pooka positive's along with her several negative's -- which might not matter nearly as much to a person with a lifestyle different from ours.

Here's how my wife summarized Pooka for the shelter:

Pluses:

Completely outside potty trained
Does not seem aggressive; easily manipulated even when afraid
Crate trained at night
Quiet except for verbal little noises to get attention when the other dog is getting attention, or when excited to see her caretakers
Smart; learns quickly with positive food reinforcement (loves to eat)
Gets along with other dogs when not overwhelmed by them
Is healthy and cute
Affectionate and excited to see caretakers  once she gets to know and feel safe with them

Minuses:

Extreme fear of new situations and new people, and unfamiliar noises: may never do well at an active dog park or off leash hiking where unfamiliar people are frequently encountered. 

Will need monitoring and reinforcement for good behavior when left alone outside in a yard or kennel due to outside anxiety

Dog adoption update: Oh, no, we've got a dingo!

It's Day 2 of our dog adoption saga. Reality is setting in. Pooka is doing fine. Much more relaxed and well-behaved than we expected (aside from just trying to eat a leaf from a houseplant). 

However...

I'm convinced that the rescue shelter was wrong when they billed her as a Shepherd/Lab mix. Pooka clearly is a dingo! Well, maybe "clearly" is too confident a conclusion.

 

Check out the evidence, though. This is a dingo.

 

 

 

And this is Pooka, our new dog. A still shot doesn't do credit to her dingoness, since as she skitters around the house in a semi-slinking fashion, her mouth is open wide in a decidedly dingo'ish expression.

Sure, Pooka has a German Shepherd'ish face also. I still think she's 99% dingo. Great... Where are we going to get kangaroo carcasses? 

We adopt a dog. Lovingly, likingly, happily.

My wife, Laurel, is a dog "LOVER." I'm a dog "lover": lower case; hold the boldface.  That's why I'm waiting for her to come home with a dog we've adopted from a rescue shelter in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Gig Harbor.

A three hour, thirty-eight minute drive from our south Salem, Oregon home according to Google Maps. Which is about two and a half hours more than I was willing to journey to look at another potential family animal companion after our previous long-distance excursion to a Florence dog shelter ended pet-less.

"This is crazy," Laurel said, as we were returning home from Florence. "We just spent six hours driving to see a dog that turned out to be maladjusted." 

"Yes," I replied. "Ginger turned out to be too fearful and untrusting. From now on I'm willing to drive an hour or so to check out a dog. Let's keep looking from Portland to Eugene, no further." 

Well, my resolve was firm. Laurel's lasted as long as it took her to come across an ad for a Shepherd/Lab mix with a pretty face on PetFinder. Our current 12 year old dog, Serena, also is a Shepherd/Lab.

Great combination.

You get the smarts of a Shepherd, but without the guard dog edginess, along with the laid back personality of a Lab, but without the blah monochrome color and binge eating. (Sorry, Lab lovers, but most of your breed is overweight.)

So after filling out a highly detailed adoption questionnaire and talking about Star numerous times with Saving Paws of Washington staff, Laurel decided to head up to Gig Harbor today -- a nine hour canine adoption quest.

Star, who likely will become "Pooka," arrived here about half an hour ago. Understandably, she's a bit wary of us humans (particularly me), but hit it off with Serena right away, judging from the tail wagging, play-bowing, and such. Here's some photos of Pooka getting acclimated to the room where she'll sleep with Serena.

Kind of a family Shepherd/Lab resemblance between Serena and Pooka. Face, at least. Serena is quite a bit bigger, fluffier, and we must say, more beautiful than Pooka. But Pooka has her own sort of petite feminine charm. 

Ah... so alert, so intelligent, so dignified. Our baby!

Some wariness evident between Mature Top Dog Serena and Young Newcomer Pooka. But they'll soon sort out their relationship. 

I don't think it'll take too long for Pooka to settle in and feel at home. It's better that she's timid and shy at the moment rather than fearful and barking, as the Florence no-go dog was. 

Thank you, Saving Paws people. Laurel is LOVING our new dog, and I, per my canine wont, am liking her. Like will turn into love soon, I'm pretty sure, once Pooka realizes that she's in a stable situation, not the changeable and stressful past few weeks she's gone through.

On February 2, Pooka was turned in by someone, likely the previous owner, to the San Bernadino County Animal & Control in southern California. She was spayed and vaccinated the next day, February 3. Then Saving Paws staff picked her up (along with her mother and a sister) on February 6 and drove her up to Gig Harbor.

A twenty-two hour drive south and back north, according to Saving Paws. That's dedication. And love. Reportedly the San Bernadino shelter doesn't keep dogs too long before sending them to Dog Heaven. 

So we've got our "rescue dog." Be thankful, Pooka, as I'm sure you will be. Life is going to be pretty darn nice for you on our ten rural acres, full of squirrels, deer, bunnies, and other smells/sights galore. Just got to get you over this initial Where am I? hump. 

Here's a positive sign: Pooka clearly loves blogging. She must sense that I'm writing about her and wants to stay close to me. Of course, the leash tied around a chair leg probably has something to do with that also. 

 

Wanted: dog just like ours, but much younger

My wife wants to get another dog, even though our current canine companion, Serena, is still very much alive at the age of twelve -- though admittedly slowing down. (But isn't that to be expected given that she's 80+ in dog years?)

Recently Serena helped me survive the Great Salem Snow-pocalypse of 2012, so I feel a lot of loyalty toward her. Plus, I believe in the adage that worked great during my child (singular)-raising years: don't allow you and your spouse to be out-numbered.

One little child, two large parents. That's a fair fight. Yet even then the kid often wins. Same deal with dogs, in my opinion. Let two or more of them into your house, and they'll form a pack. The humans are doomed. Whatever they want, they'll get.

Which admittedly, describes my Omega dominance position with both my only-child daughter and our current only-dog; but I imagine how much more Omega'y I'd have been with multiple children and dogs putting me in my place.

However, my wife sees things differently.

She's more canine-savvy than I am. Laurel sees benefits in getting a much younger dog while Old Dog is still alive -- sort of like the Big Love polygamous philosophy where a cuter, more attractive young thing comes into the household as a "sister wife" and learns how to handle herself from Senior Wife.

So Laurel has been dog-shopping both on the Internet and during her volunteer stints at the Willamette Humane Society here in Salem. Given how much my wife likes dogs, this is akin to an alcoholic volunteering to make whiskey at a Jack Daniels plant; in each case, there's going to be a huge desire to bring some stuff home.

A few days ago, a dog at the Florence Humane Society caught her online eye.

When Laurel asked me what I thought about Ginger, I resorted to thinly-disguised irony in an attempt to delay the introduction of another dog into our household.

"That dog doesn't look like a Shepherd/mix to me. I think it's almost purebred pit bull. Ginger is a killer, no doubt about it. We'll have our throats crushed by that animal if we bring it home, for sure."

Didn't work. Laurel persevered, asking if I wanted to go with her to Florence to see the dog. More irony sprang to mind.

"Florence? Isn't that way down on the coast, near the California border? Sure, I'll go with you. I haven't seen the redwoods for a long time. And maybe we could make a side trip to San Francisco, since we'll be in the neighborhood."

Laurel, though, irritatingly resorted to facts, pointing out that Florence was almost due west of Eugene, just a two hours drive or so from our house. Reluctantly, after firing up Google Maps, I had to admit that she had a point. 

So today we drove to Florence to see Ginger, carting along a fold-up dog crate in the event we decided to bring Sister Dog #2 home. Serena, Senior Dog, came along, since we wanted to check out how she'd get along with Ginger.

As it turned out, not so well.

Ginger wasn't mean or aggressive, just barkingly fearful. Laurel and I appreciated all the time the Florence Humane Society staff spent with us in an outside dog yard as we did our best to begin to bond with Ginger. 

The conclusion: Ginger would be high maintenance for whoever adopts her. She's got a lot of potential. Problem is, poor "parenting" by her previous owner(s) has caused her to not trust people. Ginger is high-strung and a barker. We could give her a few occasional pats, but treats were the only reliable way we could get her to come close to us.

Plus, it sure looks like I was sort of right: Ginger isn't a Shepherd mix, so far as Laurel and I could tell. She has much more of a Great Dane'ish appearance.

We came home without Ginger. Serena, our aging Wonder Dog (here she is, much more youthful), was calm, cool, and collected with frenetic Ginger, leading us to think "We need a younger version of the dog we already have."

So we'll keep looking for Shepherd/Lab mixes with a beautiful look and a great personality. Or similar sorts of dogs. Hopefully Ginger will be adopted soon. She'll be a terrific pet for someone who's willing to put some time and effort into relieving her fearfulness.

And Ginger does have a semi-German Shepherd/mix'ish look at times. This was one of her calmer moments.

People who throw cigarette butts out of their car are...

My wife and I have quite a few words that finish off the title of this blog post. Jerks. Inconsiderate. Litterers. 

It hugely bugs us when we see someone toss a cigarette butt out of a car window. But usually the offender is driving along in front of us, so it's difficult to see what sort of person is the inconsiderate littering jerk.

Today I had a chance to get a close-up view of that odious species, Cigarettebutt discardiatis.

I was pushing my shopping cart in the south Salem Fred Meyer parking lot. Nearing my vehicle, I saw a car drive past me. A hand flicked a still-burning cigarette butt out of the driver's window. Then the black Volkswagen MK2, with large chrome aftermarket exhaust pipes, pulled into an empty space next to mine.

I took my time with my grocery bags, wanting to see who got out of the car. I expected a redneck. Or a tough-looking guy. 

Instead, a casually dressed young couple emerged, along with their seven'ish daughter. The woman held the kid's hand as they walked into the store. A cute little Chihahua face appeared in their car's front seat, anxiously watching its "pack" disappear.

Neither the man nor the woman looked like jerks. However, I'll stick with inconsiderate litterers. (Am assuming the dog and the child aren't smokers.) Plus, adults shouldn't smoke around children. My mother did, a lot, before the danger of second-hand smoke was recognized. If I ever get lung cancer, I'll know who to blame.

Cigarette butts don't biodegrade. They're tiny trash that piles up. I have no idea why people think they can pull into a public parking lot and throw a burning butt onto the pavement, right where other shoppers have to walk.

I also have no idea why cigarette smokers keep on with their unhealthy habit. If they're into rebellious vices, there's plenty of other ways to get a drug fix that won't be nearly as bad for the body. And they won't be irritating other people by throwing their drug paraphenalia onto public spaces.

Stop smoking cigarettes. That's the best way to go. But if you smoke, keep your butts to yourself. 

Hines weight loss system: take a crap

Here's a can't-miss way to lose quite a bit of weight almost instantly. I'm sharing it with the world because I'd love it if this became known as the "Brian Hines Weight Loss System."

(Don't hesitate to reblog this post and share it on social networks. Just make sure that my name keeps on being prominently featured.)

I weigh myself every morning as soon as I get up, dutifully recording the result in my iPhone Weightbot app. I've noticed that my weight will mysteriously vary by a pound or two from day to day, even though I hadn't changed my eating and exercising habits.

Recently I conducted a scientific experiment to determine the relationship between having a bowel movement, a.k.a. taking a crap, and my weight before and after aforementioned B.M.

After entering our bathroom with the sports page and seating myself on the porcelain flushable laboratory apparatus, I was pleased to note that the experiment proceeded as planned. (I'll omit the details; and no photographs were taken, for which my blog visitors can be thankful.)

Note: I hadn't consumed any food or water after waking up and first weighing myself. Weight #1, pre-crap, was 182.6 pounds. Weight #2, post-crap, was 181.0 pounds.

Bingo! A 1.6 pound weight loss, almost effortlessly.

The Brian Hines Weight Loss System works! If you ever feel that you're really a pound or two less heavy than your scale says you are, try out my proven system for shedding pounds. 

For some reason science seems to be lagging in this important area of weight loss research. When I Googled "weight of bowel movement," I was surprised to see how few clearly relevant search results popped up.

Here's one discussion of the subject. This web page, sadly, took a frivolous approach to the serious question of bowel movement weight. Thankfully, some Iranian researchers have done solid work on daily stool weight, though annoyingly their results are shown in grams rather than all-American pounds. 

My recalculation of their gram'y results indicates that the average daily stool weight for their 1000 Iranian subjects was 12 ounces, with men coming in at 15 ounces.

So this tends to confirm the validity of my admittedly limited one-time research result of a 1.6 pound bowel movement-produced weight loss, as the researchers noted "The Iranian diet has a fairly high fiber content which can result in an increased mean daily stool weight." Being a vegetarian, I'm pretty damn fibrous.

Our Nissan Leaf doesn't give me "range anxiety"

"Range anxiety" is a hyped-up malady potential electric car owners shouldn't worry much about. Yes, at first I worried about how far our Nissan Leaf would go on a charge. Now, I don't. 

After four months of owning the electric Leaf, I enjoy driving the car almost as much as our Mini Cooper S. (Not quite... nothing is more fun than a Mini Cooper in my utterly biased opinion.) 

It's quiet, smooth, responsive, and handles well. The turning radius seems as small as the Mini's. The interior is light, open, and well-designed. For a $26,000 car, after federal and state tax credits, it's got appealing features: navigation system, satellite radio, great-sounding audio system, cool driver displays.

We have two other cars. So we only use the Leaf for our around-town jaunts, which must be over 90% of our driving. I know that even though we live in a rural area about six miles from the Salem city limits, the Leaf is going to get me where I want to go and back again, no problem.

When I researched the Nissan Leaf before my wife and I decided to sell our Prius and get a fully electric car, I read some horror stories about how little range the Leaf had in cold weather -- since the heater, lights, and everything else (including the motor, of course) runs off of battery power. 

Use more of those other electricity drains and there's less left to propel the car.

True. But here's a real life example of why range anxiety isn't a problem for us even in mid-January, when Oregon got about as cold as it ever does here in the mid-Willamette Valley. Consider the facts of a drive back and forth to Salem I made on January 13, 2012:

Throughout the entire trip the Leaf's thermometer showed the outside temperature as ranging between 30 and 35 degrees F. The trip odometer showed that I went 20 miles, total. And that was with three stops: at the Mail Depot to drop off a package, at LifeSource Natural Foods to do some shopping, at the River Road Courthouse Athletic Club to exercise.

Our Leaf was fully charged when I left home. Meaning, all ten bars on the "fuel gauge" were showing electricity available. The estimated range indicator showed 106 miles after I turned on the car.

When the Nissan salesman who sold us the car was showing us how it worked, he said "Don't pay much attention to that" when he pointed out the digital Remaining Range indicator. I've learned to do just that.

Coming home from town, we drive over a mile mostly downhill. The Remaining Range tells you how many miles you probably can go given how you've been driving recently. So freeway driving at 65 mph drops the range rapidly. Driving in town at 30 mph boosts it back up. The lesson is to pay more attention to the "fuel gauge." (Even though it also isn't completely accurate.)

I drove the entire 20 miles with the automatic climate control set to 70 degrees, so the heater was blasting away the entire time. The LED headlights and radio also were on. When I got home, five of the ten bars on the fuel gauge were still left.

So, yes, in cold weather, with about half of a 20 mile drive being at 40 to 50 mph and the rest at city speeds, the Leaf's range isn't anywhere near the 100 miles or so cited in Nissan literature. However, I was able to accomplish everything I wanted to do on a freezing day, and still had half of the car's charge left.

Plus, the Leaf fuel gauge has three red bars after the ten aforementioned bars. We rarely let the car get into this area, so I don't know how many miles it's possible to go in the "red zone." Probably, quite a few.

The Remaining Range indicator showed "49" when I drove home into our carport. That's optimistic, since as mentioned above the last miles I drove mostly were downhill. But the recharge only took 2 1/2 hours, whereas Nissan says a fully depleted battery takes about seven hours to recharge on a home quick charger. 

So I suspect I'd used considerably less than half of the Leaf's battery power on my 20 mile, three-stop, trip into Salem. Again, in 30-35 degree F. temperature, at night, with the heater blasting the whole way.

The cost was 64 cents, given our electricity rate. That's 3.2 cents a mile. By contrast, our Toyota Prius hybrid got about 42 miles a gallon on mixed driving like my Leaf trip. At $3.40 a gallon, that translates into 8.1 cents a mile. The Leaf, even in the dead of winter, is two and a half times cheaper to drive than a Prius.

And the Leaf needs much less maintenance that a gasoline-powered car. No oil changes, tuneups, and such.

Range anxiety? No big deal for us.

Nor for this test driver of a Leaf, who reviewed the car for Automobile.com. Check out "2011 Nissan Leaf: Range Anxiety for No Reason" for another view of this subject.

Yellowbook, stay out of our mailbox! It's illegal.

Curses to the companies that drop unwanted "yellow pages" directories beside our mailbox. That's littering, and we hate it. 

And double curses to Yellowbook for putting the Salem - Keizer 2012 2013 version of their unwanted directory inside our mailbox without postage or an address label. That's illegal, and we hate it even more.

I've filed a complaint with the Postal Service, choosing "tampering" as the offense. If this happened to you, and you want to file your own complaint, here's the Yellowbook corporate headquarters address and phone number (this is needed to file a Postal Service complaint): 

Yellowbook
398 RXR Plaza 
Uniondale, NY  11556
516-730-1900 

Through Google I confirmed that it is illegal to put something in another person's mailbox without postage. This is Section 1725 of the United States code at 18 USC:

Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits any mailable matter such
    as statements of accounts, circulars, sale bills, or other like
    matter, on which no postage has been paid, in any letter box
    established, approved, or accepted by the Postal Service for the
    receipt or delivery of mail matter on any mail route with intent to
    avoid payment of lawful postage thereon, shall for each such
    offense be fined under this title.

May Yellowbook be fined, and fined, and fined again for every directory they illegally put in peoples' private mailboxes. And may every business which advertises in Yellowbook realize that my wife and I never, ever keep the free directories which are dumped unwanted and unasked for on our doorstep. 

Photos of rural south Salem's snow-pocalypse

Who says the pioneer spirit in Oregon died out with the pioneers? It was alive and well today on what many are calling our state's 2012 snow-pocalypse.

Though for some reason, many also are not.

Hopefully these photos of my personal snow-pocalypse will change the minds of skeptics who doubt the severity of our recent weather emergency.

My better judgment said, "Stay inside during this wild storm." My daring heart, along with a forlorn looking family pet, said "Risk your life and go for a dog walk." Given the inclement weather, even our dog, Serena, looked unsure about our chances for survival as we left the house (note curled tail).

During the first stage of our two-mile walk we had to blaze a trail along what would have been a snow-covered road, if there had been snow actually covering it. Nonetheless, snow had begun to cover Serena's back. I began to wonder how long a dog covered in fur, and with a husky'ish tail, could survive in 38 degree conditions. After all, by the time this photo was taken we had been walking in the rural south Salem wilderness for at least ten minutes.

Soon our surroundings became completely snow-covered. It was still possible to make out our route, barely, but even the dog was showing signs of disorientation. Her footprints indicate that she'd been walking in circles. I realized that if we were going to make it home, I couldn't depend on her canine instincts.

Dog and man walked on together, leaving a trail that, at the rate the snow was falling, likely would be completely covered up in a time range that I estimated from never to several days. Still, the thought that an extinguishing of all trace of our passing could theoretically occur filled me with existential angst. I yearned to be able to chat with Sartre about this over a strong cup of expresso.

 

Eventually we reached a point in our adventure where dog and man had to leave the road and enter unmarked territory. Or at least barely-marked, since we only had a sign and several tall fences to guide us across snow-covered grassy ground.

Miraculously, the dog regained her homing instincts and guided me to where I could catch a glimpse of home. At this point I felt like we were going to make it, though I recognized that nothing is certain in a storm of the intensity we were out in.

Having endured such hardships on our trek through the snow, our home's familiar surroundings took on a special appearance with the realization that, against all odds, I'd be able to enjoy them for a while longer.

A favorite tree in our back yard looked beautiful in the snow that just a few short minutes ago had seemed so treacherous. 

Our little pond welcomed me home with bubbling arms. As did our three goldfish, still swimming about (and barely visible in the photo).

Lost in my "How did we survive?" reveries, I turned and realized that I had forgotten about my loyal canine companion, who now was huddling beneath the eaves, undoubtedly dangerously close to hypothermia. Or, perhaps more likely, Feed me my damn dinner'ia.

But before I prepared Serena's food, I knew I had to document the intensity of this snow-pocalypse for those who were lucky enough to escape it, and would know of this memorable weather event only through tales like mine. Here is a ruler showing the snow depth on our deck. Certainly over 1/4 inch; probably closer to 1/2 inch.Who knows how much deeper drifts got?

Anyway, those worrying about our safety now should be reassured.

But the AccuWeather app on my iPhone indicates more severe weather is heading our way tomorrow: four-tenths of an inch of snow is forecast. Four-tenths. With two-tenths more on Tuesday. This means that over the three days this storm has ravaged our area, we could be digging out of an inch of snow, total. 

Somehow, we shall endure. Somehow.

Weight training women, respect egos of older men

Astoundingly, via Google I wasn't able to find a reference to the most important bit of weight training etiquette every buff woman who frequents an athletic club needs to know:

Do not, repeat, do not, leave a higher weight on a machine or piece of equipment than the senior citizen men in the weight room can handle themselves.

This has bothered me for a long time. Today I learned that I'm not alone. Clearly, the time has come to educate women about proper weight training etiquette -- other than the obvious, like here, here, and here.

This afternoon I chatted with a fellow geezer older gentleman at the River Road Courthouse Athletic Club here in Salem, Oregon. Somehow, in our rambling time-to-kill retired conversational way, we got to talking about how nice it is to see attractive fit young women work out in the weight room, yet how irritating it is when we plop down at a machine (I don't do free weights) after an Attractive FIt Young Woman has just used it and find that we need to adjust the weight downward. 

Look, it's tough enough getting old without this added aggravation.

I enjoy getting a Social Security check every month, but that's just about the only glistening part of the so-called "Golden Years" that I can identify. So please, Attractive Fit Young Women, take pity on your elders of the male persuasion.

If you are working out in a room with a gray-haired man who is doing his best to keep himself from falling apart physically more than he already is, shift the weights on the machine you've finished pumping iron on down to a petite, feminine level.

Thirty pounds, say, for an upper body machine. I'll allow you more on a lower body machine, since women tend to be proportionately stronger in that area -- maybe up to 80 pounds. 

That way, the good-looking, distinguished, charismatic, slim, 60-something man (why, I could almost be describing myself) who follows in your weight-training footsteps won't feel mortified when he discovers that an Attractive Fit Young Woman can kick his butt on the machine he's about to use.

Admittedly, this doesn't happen very frequently to me. But once is too often. So ladies, don't be like the woman who crushed my male ego last week.

The warning signs were obvious, in retrospect. She looked like a female version of the buff young guys who venture into the machine room at the athletic club to work on some aspect of their near-perfect anatomy that, apparently, can't be improved by the free weights which usually demand their attention. 

She was wearing gloves, a tip-off of a serious weight trainer. Her makeup was spot-on; her workout attire form-revealing without being excessively flashy. She was slender, yet not skinny. A short-sleeved top revealed biceps that I'd gladly trade for.

I should have known what to do when I sat down at the "back" machine she'd just used: pull out the pin that determines how much weight is being lifted without looking at where she'd had it, then put back the pin at the 150 pound level that I typically use (I could handle more weight, for sure, but choose not to; wanted to get that aside in to fend off any comments along the line of You're a weenie!; to which I'd maturely reply, Saying so doesn't make it so and Takes one to know one, just like I did in third grade).

Instead, I sat down, glanced at the stack of weights, and thought "Oh, screw me! She just did a bunch of reps at 150 pounds, like I'm about to do." Geez. I'm six feet, 180 pounds. Ms. Attractive Fit Young Woman appeared to be about 5' 4" and 120.

She ruined my day. Ruined it. Well, part of it. OK, a tiny bit of it, because I spent the rest of my workout rationalizing away her ability to push the same amount of weight with her back muscles as I can.

Probably just did a few hyper-intense reps at her upper weight limit. Lower back strength is no big deal; who cares? Maybe she lifted at a lower weight and then put the pin back at a level for us macho men to use.

All that rationalizing took energy, though. I needed a longer nap once I got home. So have compassion, women: be aware that whenever you leave a high weight in place at an athletic club, you could be crushing a senior citizen male ego. 

Do my telomeres look longer? (I'm taking astragalus)

About four years ago I shared my supplements list with a mildly- to un-interested world. Seems like a good time to do it again, since there's been some Big News in the non-prescription nostrums I take every day to keep disability, disease, and death at bay.

I've gone from 22 supplements to 19.

Gone are two algae oil sources of DHA and EPA, as I've replaced these with Ultimate Omega fish oil. Even though I'm a vegetarian, I decided that consuming fish oil was OK, karma-wise, since there doesn't seem to be an equally good non-animal source of omega-3 fatty acids.

Garlicin and gingko biloba bit the supplement dust. Vegetarian glucosamine was replaced by Celadrin, a joint health compound (that also contains some animal stuff) which has some decent research behind it. Pygeum and saw palmetto were dumped in favor of two prescription prostate-symptom-reducing drugs, dutasteride and tamsulosin (brand names: Avodart and Flomax; I take generics).

I added Super Zeaxanthin for eye health, and -- most recently -- Astragalus for telomere lengthening and general health promotion. Having telomeres that are as long as possible seems to be pretty important, according to anti-aging research cited in Scientific American.

Peter Pan stayed forever young in Neverland. In real life, some scientists are looking at telomeres, or regions of repetitive DNA at the ends of our chromosomes, to try to arrive at something like a real version of this story.

Telomeres consist of up to 3,300 repeats of the DNA sequence TTAGGG. They protect chromosome ends from being mistaken for broken pieces of DNA that would otherwise be fixed by cellular repair machinery. But every time our cells divide, the telomeres shrink. When they get short enough, our cells no longer divide and our body stops making those cells. Over time, this leads to aging and death.

Astragalus appears to slow down this process.

New York-based T.A. Sciences claims to be the only company in the world manufacturing a supplement in a pill form that has been lab tested and shown to stop telomeres from shortening, in hopes of halting the aging process. The product, TA-65, comes from extracts of the Chinese herb astragalus, which has been used for medicinal purposes for more than 1,000 years, says Noel Patton, chief executive officer of the company. 

I'd take TA-65, but it's freaking expensive: $219 for 30 capsules, but it looks like the cost could be $1,000 a month for a higher dosage. I'd like my telomeres lengthened, yet not that much. And there's good reason to be skeptical of what T.A. Sciences is up to. So I bought some Solaray Astragalus for $6.54 per 100 capsules through Life Extension.

Hey, if I feel like my telomeres are longer, maybe they actually are. (Please compliment me on my pleasingly lengthy telomeres if you see me in person; that'll help with my placebo effect.) Dr. Oz is big on astragalus, for what that's worth.

By middle age you’re not only feeling exhausted; your cells are also starting to wear out. The reason? Shorter telomeres. Every time a cell divides, a little chunk of telomere gets spent. When you run out of telomeres, the cell stops replicating. My secret cell supercharger is astragalus, an herb that’s been used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years. New studies suggest that a compound in astragalus can affect telomere length in cells. I recommend taking up to 1,200 milligrams of astragalus with a glass of iced coffee or green tea. The caffeine in these drinks naturally boosts metabolism, helping you burn calories.

Here's my updated supplement list. Like I said before, "Do your own research. Make up your own mind."

Acetyl-L-carnitine 620 mg
Align probiotic
Alpha lipoic acid 100 mg
Astragalus 400 mg 
Aspirin 81 mg
Bilberry fruit extract 120 mg
Celadrin 1050 mg
Cold-FX 200 mg
Co-Q-10 60 mg
DHEA 25 mg
Fish oil 1000 mg ("Ultimate Omega") 
Green tea extract 725 mg
Lutein 12 mg
Melatonin 1 mg
Multi-vitamin ("Doctor's Choice for 50-Plus Men")
Pomegranate extract 500 mg
Resveratrol 250 mg 
Super Zeaxanthin
Vitamin D 400 IU

Our unreal (really!) 2011 Christmas Letter is unveiled

Every year I struggle, for a whole fifteen seconds or so, to come up with a theme for our Christmas Letter -- which we call, with marvelous political correctness, "Holiday Greetings from Laurel and Brian."

Once again it was easy to identify a zeitgeist for 2011. Unreal. Such has become our favorite way of handling reality: treat it as illusion. 

[Legal disclaimer: this only works with brain-stuff such as emotions, worries, fears, and such. Ignore a red traffic light and your results almost certainly will differ.]

So here's our totally unreal 2011 Christmas Letter, a.k.a. Holiday Greetings. Read it and you'll thrill, if you're easily thrilled, to photos of our favorite people -- us -- plus our favorite, not to mention only, granddaughter.

Plus, plus, Serena, our family dog who also enjoys pretending to be a canine that she's not.
Download 2011 Christmas Letter (PDF file)
Download 2011 Holiday Letter Word (Word file) 

Merry Christmas. May your ears, and other important parts of you, be as perky as Serena's in 2011.

Mailing Christmas cards still feels right to me

I'm a techno guy. I've got an iPhone, MacBook Pro, Roku, and Apple TV. Plus two blogs and Facebook/Twitter accounts. But today I mailed the last of my Christmas cards. Yes, mailed. 

As in where you pick up a card and envelope from a box, write your name and maybe some personal thoughts on the card, fold over a photo-filled Holiday Letter that you and your wife composed, place it inside the card, put the card inside the envelope, seal the envelope with a lick of your tongue, write the address of the person you're sending it to as legibly as your horrible penmanship allows, afix a Christmas-themed stamp to the upper right corner of the envelope, and place a return address label that a non-profit organization has sent you for this purpose in the upper left corner. 

(Note: thank you, non-profit, for saying "Brian and Laurel HInes" on the labels; I'm still recovering from the trauma suffered to my male ego, when, a few years ago, we used labels that said "Mr. and Mrs. Laurel HInes".)

We seem to be getting fewer and fewer mailed Christmas cards with every passing holiday season. Emailed greetings are becoming more common. I'm not opposed to this. Reaching out and touching someone is a good thing to do, whether via a computer screen or paper. 

I simply enjoy sitting down at our dining room table and doing as my grandmother did, as my mother did, as my daughter does, and, probably, as my granddaughter won't do. By the time she's old enough to send out Christmas greetings of her own (she's four now), I suspect mailed cards will seem as archaic to her as notes delivered by carrier pigeon seem to me.

My heart says "that'll be a loss." However, what matters a lot to one generation often becomes a what's the big deal with that? to a following generation. 

Us baby-boomers grew up in a more tactile communication world.

Lifting a card out of the mailbox; opening the flap with a fingernail; unfolding the greeting with your hands; feeling the weight and texture of the paper; observing the marks on the card made by a pen held by a friend, relative, or loved one -- a text message, tweet, Facebook update, or email may convey the same information as a mailed card, but these just aren't the same.

Not even close.

At least, not for someone like me who has enjoyed getting and sending real Christmas cards for most of his sixty-three years (my babyhood and early childhood are either a blur or a blank to me).

Part of the allure of my habitual Christmas-card-sending ritual feels akin to the farewell scene that has taken place on the last show of most Survivor (reality TV) seasons -- where the three people who have managed to avoid being "voted off the island" pay homage to those who are no longer with them.

In my case, some of the people I thought of while addressing my cards are dead. When I send a card to a high school classmate, I think of two good childhood friends who were part of my life since first grade. They aren't any more, having died too soon. But they're alive in my memories, stimulated when I write out my home town, "Three Rivers," as I address a Christmas card.

Clicking on an email group wouldn't be the same.

I wouldn't remember that somewhere within that group is the zip code 93271, my mother's zip code for so many years. I wrote it on many letters to her after I left home. Picking up a pen and writing it on an envelope today felt so familiar. I only do it once a year now, when I mail a Christmas card to a woman nearly my age who, as a young girl, was our next door neighbor and now lives in her family home.

I picture her as she was while going through the motions of preparing the card for mailing. In my mind she hasn't aged a bit, because I haven't seen her in person for so long. At that moment nothing has changed: she's still six years old; I'm sixteen; my mother is alive. I'm sending a message to zip code 93271.

I know none of this is true. Yet in a way, it is.

That's part of the magic of a mailed, hand-addressed Christmas card. Perhaps I'll fall under the sway of purely electronic holiday greetings someday, but that day isn't now. I hope it won't be ever.

I return my Kindle Fire -- after one day

Within half an hour of the earliest time it was possible to order a Kindle Fire on Amazon's web site, my one-click reservation had been made.

Within three hours of opening up the Kindle box after UPS delivered it yesterday, I'd decided to return the pseudo-tablet. Which I did this afternoon.

I'm sorry Amazon, but Apple has spoiled me.

I have a MacBook Pro laptop that I love. I have an iPhone 4 that I love. My wife has an iPad 2 that I sort of love, my limited affection for it perhaps being more a matter of our passing acquaintance relationship rather than an intimate bonding.

Apple products have a certain you can't resist me quality that I was hoping would be evident in the Kindle Fire. Sadly, no. I found the device functional, but not Apple oh-so-cool'ish.

My biggest problem with the Fire, though, wasn't a lack of lust but a deficit in usability. After I played around with the thing for a while my overriding thought was, "Why do I need it?" Not able to come up with a convincing reason, the Kindle Fire is on its way back to Amazon.

I tried reading a book on the Fire. Ugh. It was readable enough, but highlighting passages was annoyingly difficult, and I'm a habitual highlighter/note taker. It looks like paper books are going to continue to be in my hands rather than an e-reader.

Then I fired up the video section of the fire. It was easy to access my Amazon Prime free videos and start watching the first episode of the first season of "24," which I'd never seen.

After a few minutes though, I realized that I'd much prefer to watch TV on, well, a television. We have a nice big screen TV, and a bit of Googling led me to realize that it isn't possible to stream videos from the Kindle Fire to a television, which somehow I'd envisioned myself being able to do.

Well, I'd also not evisioned myself doing this, because I couldn't really see how the Fire would be able to get video directly to our television without an intermediary like the Roku. So I ordered a Roku as a streaming video backup plan. It came a day before the Fire was delivered, but I left the Roku in the box until I could test out the Kindle Fire and see if it could perform a streaming miracle.

It couldn't. I then had no trouble connecting the Roku 2 XS to our TV via a HDMI cable, and also to our wi-fi broadband connection.

Yes, it was kind of a pain to click out video searches with the Roku remote control. A tablet like the Fire would make that easier given its virtual keyboard. However, in short order I'd purchased the first episode of this season's "Survivor South Pacific." (Somehow our DVR had failed to record the series; naturally I assume it was DirecTV's problem, not mine.)

The Roku streamed the television program perfectly, in HD, without commercials. This, by the way, was much better performance than Apple TV offered when I tried to do the same thing with that device. Apple TV requires that a program be downloaded, rather than streamed. 

I gave up when I saw that Apple TV had only downloaded 21 minutes of a one hour program after taking about ten minutes to do even that. Then, when I went back to see how Apple TV was doing, the download had frozen. I'll probably try to get my $2.99 or whatever it was back from iTunes. For now, I'll content myself with blog-bashing Apple TV. Roku is better, so far as I can tell.

Anyway, back to the Kindle Fire. Since I've never felt that I needed an iPad, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I wasn't turned on by the Kindle Fire. It was ever less gadget-desire-kindling than I anticipated it would be, though.

This review pretty much sums up how I feel. The Fire isn't really a tablet; it's mainly an Amazon content provider. And it's e-reading capabilities aren't as good as lower cost Kindle alternatives, if that's what you're looking for.

The review ends with:

Ultimately, the $200 Kindle Fire lacks many features I consider essential in a serious tablet: the ability to work on it using a keyboard, browse the Internet quickly, view whole magazine pages, and so on. But we can't fault it for not being an iPad. It's only a few hundred fewer dollars, and Amazon has never marketed it as a tablet. This is a basic media consumption device.

I wouldn't be discussing pricing if I didn't have some doubts about the Kindle Fire's value. There are no dealbreakers here, but the Kindle Fire is pretty pokey, and the browsing experience is not (yet) what was promised. The Kindle Fire operating system doesn't improve on Gingerbread in any appreciable way, and all it does is put Amazon's services and stores front and center.

I hesitate to recommend that people buy a product that is as unpolished as the Kindle Fire, particularly because I suspect it will end up often as a gift from early tablet adopters to late ones (but remember—this isn't a tablet!). With iPads setting the bar for consumer expectations, I don't like to see usability and responsiveness backslide just because the price is lower. It's not impossible Amazon won't further refine the Kindle Fire with software updates, but there's no precedent for that.

The best way to think of the Kindle Fire is as a decent e-reader that can do some extra stuff—namely, play videos and browse the Internet. For $200, that's not a bad deal—but just make sure that it's one you're willing to make.

Help with my .XXX site market research

Until today I'd never considered becoming a purveyor of XXX material.

But I just got an email from my domain name registrar, Dotster, informing me of how important it is to have a .XXX presence now that this top-level domain is available.

Registering a .XXX domain enables you to keep control of your online brand. Landrush is open to members of the Sponsored Community or individuals who qualify to become members. General Availability is open to everyone regardless of whether you are an adult industry professional or simply looking to protect your web presence.

Well, I don't exactly understand what they're talking about. (Suggestion to Dotster: Have a buxom naked woman on a webcam explain how .XXX domain registration works.)

I'm into keeping control of my online brand, though. Which I gather is me, since I'm a blogger.

And given how large the market for porn is, it sure seems like I should be able to come up with a .XXX site that could channel some extra cash into our checking account. "Our" reflects the fact that I'm married, so this circumstance will have at least some slight effect on what sort of porn site I could develop.

I'm thinking of a twist inspired by the popular Porn for Women book, which shows pictures of men cooking, listening, folding laundry, asking for directions, and other outrageous female fantasies. 

The twist would be that I'd aim my .XXX site at the opposite end of the market: women (and, heck, men also, so long as they have a credit card) who are turned on by male messiness. I'd like to embrace cinéma vérité on my porn site, so the most truthful subject I could film -- also, the cheapest -- would be me going about my usual everyday life.

Thus I'm wondering what the worldwide market is for what admittedly would be a narrow niche of the .XXX online offerings: video of a 63 year old man (in good shape!) doing things around the house that would annoy a neatnik, yet (I can only hope) turn on people with a fetish for certain sorts of messiness.

If you're such a person, especially of the female variety, let me know how much you'd pay to have access to regularly updated videos of me:

-- leaving the towels in our bathrooms all askew
-- splashing water onto edges of the kitchen sink without wiping it off
-- tossing clothes on the top of my dresser instead of hanging them up
-- putting my electric toothbrush away with toothpaste still on it
-- not washing the coffee pot for, like, two weeks
-- hanging shirts in my closet so casually they're half falling-off the hangers 
-- stacking mail, books, magazines & notes to myself around my laptop in glorious confusion

Now, I realize that my MessyMan.XXX site will only appeal to a woman who (1) is turned on by male messiness, yet (2) has an exceptionally neat man in her life, so is feeling unfulfilled. (I considered adding "or can't find a messy man," but that sounded ridiculous.)

A small market? Yes.

But with seven billion people in the world and ever-increasing Internet access, a MessyMan.XXX site could be a winner. I await the verdict of responses to this market research blog post. Thanks in advance for your help.

Why I decided to still get a PSA test

I'm a believer in scientific research. I worked as a health planner for over ten years. I wrote a well-received analysis, "Quality of life in allocating health care resources." I understand that much medical care is wasteful, unneeded, and ineffective.

Nonetheless, at my annual physical last week this 63 year old guy still decided to get a PSA test, which is used to detect prostate cancer. Only problem is, the test isn't very effective. In October the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended against getting the test, in most cases. 

Healthy men should no longer receive a P.S.A. blood test to screen for prostate cancer because the test does not save lives over all and often leads to more tests and treatments that needlessly cause pain, impotence and incontinence in many, a key government health panel has decided.

Reading an article about this in our newspaper, I'd pretty much decided to pass on a PSA test when it came time for my annual physical. If the test causes more harm than good, why get one?

However, I'm fortunate to have a family doctor who open-mindedly discusses options with her patients. We talked about the pros and cons of me getting a PSA test for five minutes or so. In the end, I said "Hey, why not? I'll get a PSA test this year, like I have in the past."

This was what shaped my reasoning: (1) My insurance would pay for the test. (2) I could either ignore the results of the test, or I could pay attention to the results. (3) Either way -- ignore or pay attention -- I'd have more information if I got the PSA test, than if I didn't.

You can read the draft recommendation from the Preventive Services Task Force here. lt seems solid.

Experts at the Oregon Health Science University, a short drive up I-5 from where I live, affirmed the Task Force's review of the literature on PSA test effectiveness. So I'm convinced that, given current knowledge, for most men there's no compelling reason to get a PSA test.

But there's also no compelling reason not to.

It's up to the individual, like me, who is as capable of deciding whether to get a PSA test as to how much importance should be given to the results. Meaning, just as I could have decided to pass on a PSA test, so I could pass on any further diagnosing if the test came back with a positive result.

In the exam room I told my doctor, "The main argument against getting a PSA test seems to be that a positive result often leads to unnecessary treatment, with nasty side effects (impotence, incontinence). However, this implies that patients are helpless to resist the Medical Treatment Machine, which sucks them in against their will."

So I thought, why not? 

A positive test result would worry me, but not nearly so much as it would have before I learned that 80% of positive PSA results are false. Thus usually it makes sense to take a positive result lightly, or even to ignore it completely.

Again, I realized that I could either ignore the PSA test by not getting one, or I could get the test and then ignore the results. (Which turned out to be negative, by the way.) I trusted that my doctor and I could deal with a positive result wisely -- not rushing into a biopsy or surgery without a very good reason.

This attitude is in line with a recent "Perspective" piece in the New England Journal of Medicine: "One Man at a Time -- Resolving the PSA Controversy."

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently released a draft recommendation on screening for prostate cancer, designed for primary care physicians and health systems, and has opened it for public comment until November 8, 2011. After completing a rigorous evidence review, the task force decided to recommend against screening for prostate-specific antigen (PSA), concluding that there is moderate or high certainty that the service has no net benefit or that the harms outweigh the benefits. This grade D recommendation applies to healthy men of all ages, regardless of race or family history. The task force's suggestion for practice for grade D interventions is to “discourage the use of this service.”

...Our perspective is that this evidence of a possible small but finite benefit from the largest trial would best support a grade C recommendation for men 55 to 69 years of age. With a grade C recommendation, the task force would be recommending “against routinely providing the service” while indicating that “there may be considerations that support providing the service in an individual patient” and stipulating that “there would need to be at least moderate certainty that the net benefit is small.” The task force's suggestions for practice in the case of a grade C recommendation include the suggestion that they “offer/provide this service only if other considerations support offering or providing the service in an individual patient.”

A grade C recommendation would allow the patient to be involved in the decision to skip or choose a PSA screening test, after a discussion with a primary care provider about the magnitude of the known harms and the potential for some benefit. The patient could then provide his perspective on how he views the trade-off. Weighing the pros and cons to make a decision about PSA screening is an individual process, and different well-informed men will make different decisions. 

Absolutely.

This is a middle way: recognizing that on the whole, the PSA test isn't called for; but if an individual patient wants one after considering the pros and cons, he should be able to get one.

Coffee measuring rule: use 2 tablespoons per 6 ounces

I love coffee. I've made it every day for many years. But recently I learned that I've been making it wrong. Too weak. Damn you, Mr. Coffee!

Obeying the instructions on my Mr. Coffee drip machine, I've been dutifully using three tablespoons of ground coffee per 20 ounces of water (four 5 ounce cups, which to me -- and lots of other people these caffeinated days -- actually is one cup of coffee, a "Venti" in Starbucks terminology).

But that's just .15 tablespoons of coffee per ounce of water, whereas the Holy Commandment of coffee making is to use two tablespoons per six ounces, which translates into .33 tablespoons for every ounce of water.

Wow! All these years I've been drinking coffee that was only half as strong as it should have been. How do I know this? Check it out:

Jerry Baldwin, a co-founder of Starbucks correctly says, "Don't Be Afraid of Strong Coffee."

When people ask how to make better coffee at home, my first question is "How much coffee is in your coffee?" One of the common problems we professionals encounter away from our own brewing is weak coffee. And there is nothing that can be done to salvage weak coffee.

... on countless occasions I've served our coffee to people for the first time. On first sip, they say, "This is strong." By the third or fourth sip, they say, "This is good." The main surprise, I think, is that most coffee is weak and that's what people are expecting. But as soon as they actually taste the full flavor of fresh, freshly ground, full strength coffee, they have a coffee epiphany.

...We recommend at least a full coffee measure (two tablespoons) per six fluid ounces of water for all brewing methods except espresso. 

This also is what my current coffee of choice, Trader Joe's Organic Fair Trade Wake Up Blend, says on the container: "Use approximately 2 tablespoons of ground coffee for each 6 ounces of cold water."

And almost every knowledgeable-appearing web site that popped up in a Google "coffee strength measures per ounce" search also advised the same Holy Commandment: 2 tablespoons for each 6 ounces of water, with a coffee scoop being defined as holding 2 tablespoons.

(For example, see here, here, and here.) 

Of course, a coffee strength that appeals to one person may not appeal to another. My wife thinks that the coffee I make is a bit too strong, though she happily drinks it. I've come to realize, though, that the way I used to make coffee wasn't allowing the full taste of the beans to come through.

I have Trader Joe's to thank for my caffeinated enlightenment. When a store here in Salem, Oregon finally opened, I started drinking the free coffee samples. I liked the taste of them, noticing that they had a lot more oomph than the coffee I was making. 

Observing the 2 tablespoons per 6 ounces advice on the Trader Joe's container, I changed my Mr. Coffee brewing approach. 

Interestingly, when I used 8 tablespoons (4 measures) to make four cups of coffee in the Mr. Coffee carafe, the brew seemed too strong. So I switched to 6 tablespoons, which I figured was equivalent to 1.5 tablespoons per 6 ounce cup.

But before writing this post I decided to check the Mr. Coffee carafe to make sure that four cups really was 24 ounces, the standard way of measuring a cup of coffee being 6 ounces. I discovered that Mr. Coffee considers a cup to be 5 ounces. 

This meant that the way I now was making coffee, which tasted great to me, was equivalent to .3 tablespoons per ounce of water (1.5 / 5 = .3). That -- coffee research drum roll, please -- was darn close to the .33 tablespoons per ounce Holy Commandment (2 / 6 = .33).

So in an aroundabout way I confirmed what expert coffee brewers had known way before me: using 2 tablespoons of coffee for every 6 ounces of water produces an excellent cup of coffee.

Try it, if you're not already. I bet you'll like it.

Getting smarter from doing something stupid

Our electronic air cleaner and I have a rocky relationship. It's down in our crawlspace, attached to our heat pump duct work. Every three months or so I vacuum the air cleaner's removable filters, which requires taking its door off.

And more often than I'd like to admit -- but since this is a self-revealing blog, I'll admit it -- I have a tough time getting the door back on. 

The door has metal flanges that fit behind its metal enclosure. A diagram on the door shows how it's supposed to fit over the enclosure, after which two gizmos are rotated to lock the door in place. Sounds simple, and it is.

When I'm not doing something stupid.

Before I take the door off, I always look at how its attached to maximize my chances of getting it back on smoothly. But today I forgot almost immediately that the right side of the door flange fits over the lip of the metal encosure, while the left side fits within the lip. 

I've forgotten this before also.

So you'd think, just as I'd think, that a non-senile (so far as I know, but I might be the last to know) 63 year-old guy who isn't a complete idiot about most stuff in life wouldn't have to spend over half an hour fussing with an air cleaner door, trying all the things that didn't work the last time he had trouble getting the door back on, and not just once or twice or thrice, but repetitively to the point of obsessively.

To such a degree, eventually my wife stuck her head into the crawl space and said, "Are you still trying to get the air cleaner door on? Maybe you should get help from a neighbor, or call Judson's" (the company that installed our heat pump).

I wasn't wild about either suggestion.

I'd retained enough self-awareness beneath the surface of my steadily increasing frustration to know that the solution to my problem was going to appear amazingly simple once it was found. The last thing I wanted was some other guy to pick up the door, place it on the air cleaner housing, turn the locks so they made a satisfying click, then turn to me and say, "There, all done," while thinking Geez, Brian is a freaking idiot.

I wanted to say that to myself, just as I have many times.

So I took a short break to acquire a flashlight and screwdriver, neither of which I actually needed. I just wanted to take a few breaths out of the crawlspace and see whether my brain could pop up with the simple solution that I intuited was close at hand somewhere in my psyche's subconscious depths.

After returning to the air cleaner it didn't take long for Bingo! With a clearer mind, I stopped assuming that my problem was either X, Y, or Z and tried something different. In a few seconds the door had popped on cleanly, I'd turned the locks, and pressed the power button. We were back in business, air cleaning-wise.

I immediately made a note of how the door needs to fit on the housing so, hopefully, I'll never have to repeat the frustration of doing this particular stupid thing. Assuming, of course, that I remember to look at the note.

Wanting to feel like some good came out of those 45 minutes or so of crawl space wasted-time, I've been trying to discover a broader lesson from my experience. The most obvious, of course, is that we can't know what we don't know we don't know.

Meaning, if I know that I don't know something, I can act to fill that gap in my knowledge. These days, a bit of Googling works wonders with most factual lacks. But when I'm looking in a completely wrong direction, when I don't even know what I don't know (sort of like physics' not even wrong), I'm stuck.

No exit. No way out. Until something changes, I'm doomed to wander in a Problem Maze where the same blank walls keep blocking my way; I back up, try another path, and find myself back at the same place.

My wife had the right idea: broaden my horizons by reaching out to someone else and getting a fresh perspective. Back in my Systems Science Ph.D. Program days, I remember an exercise where our small group had to figure out how many marbles, or whatever they were, filled a large container. The average of all of our guesses was pretty darn accurate, even though individual guesses varied widely.

Down in the crawl space, there was only me.

Faced with a relatively trivial problem, I felt justified in banging my head against the air cleaner wall (metaphorically) until I came up with the solution that had worked for me before, but which I'd forgotten. Bullheadedness has its place, especially in the male ego.

But with more significant problems it isn't smart to not realize how stupid you are acting. When you find yourself going around and around, getting a kick in the butt from someone else can lead to a helpful change in direction. Our tendency to do what we've done before, even when it isn't working, is a well-known characteristic of the human brain.

I've been thinking about this when I read about how the Super Committee charged with coming up with a deficit reduction plan apparently is in a stalemate. Republicans refuse to consider tax increases; Democrats are reluctant to propose reductions in social programs like Medicare.

Yet the general public, along with almost all mainstream economists, know that both tax increases and benefit reductions are going to be necessary. This is another example of how continuing to do something just because it's what you've always done leads to stupidity -- an air cleaner door that won't go on; a federal deficit that won't go away.

Today I learned that the solution to my door problem was simple and close at hand. I just was focused in the wrong direction, on approaches that I kept trying because they were familiar (also, wrong). Likewise, I keep waiting for Congress to get smart about the federal budget: more revenue and less spending. 

Simple. Real simple.

Unfortunately, it isn't easy to realize that you don't even know what you need to know. Which in the case of Congress is... compromise, moderation, driving in the middle of the political road.

Les Schwab in south Salem helps me get un-lug nutty

Les Schwab (the tire center) and I have a long relationship, all positive so far. Sure, we part company on the "Free Beef" deal -- how about some free tofu? -- and we've got different views on a proposed Oregon studded tire ban, but I really like the Les Schwab commitment to customer service.

There's quite a few stories on the Internet about how a Les Schwab employee went above and beyond the call of duty to help someone with a tire problem. Mine isn't as dramatic as most, but I still want to share how my lug nut problem got solved today at the south Salem Les Schwab store.

Our recently-purchased Nissan Leaf needed some tire chains.

My wife, the primary driver of the Leaf, hates to put on regular quick-fit chains even more than I do. So I did some searching for an alternative to the kneel-down-and-reach-around approach (sounds kind of erotic, but when the object of your attention is a tire, believe me, it isn't).

I discovered the Thule K-Summit, a technological marvel, albeit a spendy one. Like Spikes-Spiders, the chains attach entirely from the outside of the tire. A difference, though, is that the K-Summit doesn't require a geeky looking adapter like Spikes-Spiders do.

So I ordered a set for the Leaf.

Only problem was, the gizmo that attaches the Thule chains to a front wheel lug nut wouldn't tighten down firmly. I could tell that I was using the correctly sized lug nut adapter, but when I tried to tighten the gizmo's screw it would end up feeling decidedly loose.

Thule, with its Swedish origin, follows the IKEA practice of providing instructions that are almost 100% pictorial. No words, just diagrams showing what to do. Also, what not to do. With some effort, my unmechanical brain was able to decipher the apparent meaning of a diagram that was so important, it was shown on a card attached to the chains themselves.

A red "X" showed what shouldn't occur when putting on the K-Summit chains: the gizmo should fit completely over a lug nut, not attach to it in a half-assed fashion. Yet that's what I kept encountering with the Leaf lug nuts. Which, upon a closer inspection than I've ever given a lug nut, were strangely rounded on the end.

I needed help. I phoned Portland's Rack Attack and was told that Thule didn't have an adapter for weirdly shaped lug nuts that were too long for the gizmo to attach to. The Rack Attack guy agreed with me that replacement lug nuts would be the only solution.

So this afternoon I found myself at the south Salem Les Schwab, kneeling beside one of our Leaf's tires, showing an attentive Tire Center employee the Thule K-Summit chains, plus all of the adapters that wouldn't fit, demonstrating to him how the lug nuts were acting, well, nutty. 

After a few minutes he said, "I'll get some replacement nuts and be right back." Which he was, quickly, because Les Schwab employees don't walk when they're outside the main office/display area -- they run. 

When he came back with a couple of possible replacement lug nuts, we played around with them for another five minutes or so. I wanted to be sure that the gizmo would tighten properly around a new nut, and it took my nonmechanical brain longer than the employee's to figure out that new lug nut X would work, whereas new lug nut Y wouldn't.

Once we'd settled on the replacement lug nuts, the Les Schwab employee said he'd round up ten of them and I could pay for them inside. Then, even though I've put on quite a few lug nuts in my time, I successfully played the Helpless Customer Game -- which, this being Les Schwab, I was confident would end up winningly.

"OK, that sounds fine...um, but the Leaf doesn't have a spare tire, so I may not have the right tool to replace the lug nuts. And I'm not that familiar with torqueing. So, um, could you possibly put on the lug nuts for me?"

Yes, he was happy to. He had me move the Leaf behind another car being worked on in a service bay, then jogged over with an air gun -- which I told him was a handy device missing from our garage.

I had just enough time to check email on my iPhone using the Les Schwab wi-fi service and grab a bag of popcorn from the waiting area. The eminently helpful employee then came in and totaled up my bill after talking with me for about fifteen minutes about the lug nuts, and spending another five to ten minutes taking off the old lug nuts and putting on the new ones.

At two bucks a nut, my VISA charge was $20. Well worth it, since without the right lug nuts my oh-so-cool Thule K-Summit chains would have had to be returned. Now the chains seem to fit great.

Yeah, like I said six years ago, "I love Les Schwab."

(Here's another love-reason: yesterday the same Les Schwab Tire Center put on four winter tires/wheels on our Highlander Hybrid for free, temporarily replacing the Toyo all season tires that I'd bought at Les Schwab.)

How I sold our 2007 Prius: what worked, and what didn't

Yesterday I sold our 2007 Prius Touring for a fair price: $16,000. The buyer was happy, and I'm happy. So now that I've had the vast experience of one recent private party used car sale, I'll share my tips for car-selling in this Internet age.

In short: AutoTrader good, Craigslist bad. I only got two serious inquiries about the car, both through AutoTrader.

My Craigslist ad mostly resulted in email messages that said: "Location? I can pick it up," along with "How much are you asking for this car ?? Ive been wanting to buy one like this so if you can please email me back thank you," and another "Location? I can pick it up" from a different scammer.

Dudes, be more creative.

The asking price was clearly listed on the ad. I'm not so stupid to believe that someone is going to buy and pick up the car sight unseen. The only good thing I can say about Craigslist is that the value of the ad I put up was equal to the price I paid for it: nothing.

By contrast, I found the AutoTrader web site to be wonderfully easy to navigate. I paid extra for several add-on features that supposedly gave my ad more visibility. Don't know if that helped, but I sold the Prius in about three weeks via AutoTrader.

It wasn't a lot of fun, but I felt like I had no choice after realizing that selling our car to a dealer wasn't going to net us what the Prius was worth to a private party. The Corvallis Nissan dealer -- where we recently bought a Leaf electric car -- offered a decent amount: about $14,500, which was the Kelly Blue Book estimate for a "good" condition trade-in.

That was a fair offer. But another dealer, who would go anonymous if I didn't want to mention that the name is Capitol Toyota here in Salem, gave me an insultingly low offer of $12,500.

So here's another tip: don't expect that just because you've bought three cars from a new car dealer (in our case, two Priuses/Prii and a Highlander Hybrid), and that dealer has regularly been mailing postcards to you saying "Your Toyota used car is in demand; call us today to find out how much it is worth," you'll get a fair price from the dealer.

Previously I'd traded in our 2004 Prius when my wife and I bought the 2007 Prius Touring. At that time, a Capitol Toyota salesman who I liked a lot, and would go anonymous if I didn't want to mention that his name is Kelly Stewart (Kelly now is with Capitol's Chevrolet dealership), simply went into his office for a few minutes and came out with a Kelly Blue Book report that showed the trade-in value -- which was exactly the same price that I'd gotten when I visited the Kelly Blue Book site myself.

When I brought in the 2007 Prius for a look-see, though, having been advised by our Nissan salesman that a Toyota dealer should give us more for the car than his dealership could, a used car guy at Capitol Toyota handed me a Edmund's report that showed our car as being in "rough" condition. He said the best he could do was $12,500.

I said, thanks and walked out the door.

Here's a tip for new car dealerships: if you give a three-peat customer a low-ball price when he asks how much his four year old car is worth, if he ever thinks about getting another new car from your dealership, he's going to remember what happened and question whether he can get a fair deal.

Our 2007 Prius wasn't in "rough" condition. It had one small ding on the front passenger door. Otherwise it was in near perfect shape. Yesterday the couple who paid $16,000 for it said, "Wow, it looks great." I honestly filled out the Kelly Blue Book car condition questions and learned that our car indeed was in "good" condition -- as most used cars are.

I'm not saying that all car salespeople can't be trusted. Most can be. We thoroughly enjoyed how Russ Goodyear (great name for a car salesman) treated us at Jack Scoville Nissan in Corvallis. I'm just reminding people to do their research before heading to a dealership to get a quote on what a used car is worth.

All I can figure is that Capitol Toyota assumed that I might be clueless about what our car was worth, and/or desperate to sell it at a ridiculous low-ball price. Regardless, I found that $12,500 offer to be insulting, if not borderline dishonest (since the car clearly wasn't in rough condition).

My only other tip for a private party sale is to treat a prospective buyer like you would want to be treated yourself.

I don't like playing price-negotiating games. Some people do. In that case, maybe you can justify sticking with a high asking price and trying to argue a potential buyer out of a lower offer.

But after several weeks of not selling the car at a price that started at $17,900, I reduced the asking price to just above what I honestly thought the car should go for: $16,495. (Kelly Blue Book had the private party price at $15,850, but our Prius had new tires with just a few hundred miles on them.)

I realized that since I don't like to price-negotiate, if I saw a car for sale that I was interested in, yet the price was a thousand dollars or more above what I thought was a fair offer, I'd be inclined to look elsewhere.

So I changed the AutoTrader and Craigslist ads to say $16,495. Within a day a woman emailed me and said, "Would you accept $16,000? If so, we'll bring you a cashier's check and pick up the car."

Done.

I'll end with a comment to Capitol Toyota, in case someone from the dealership ever reads this blog post. If you guys had offered me $15,000 for the Prius, I would have seriously considered the offer. You then could have made at least a thousand dollars on the deal. Probably more, given that you've got a lot more experience selling cars than I do.

I don't understand why car dealers aren't 100% into buying and selling quality cars for a fair price. In this country, car dealerships are just about the last place where ordinary people buying retail still have to often engage in intense price negotiating and sales game-playing.

That isn't appealing to me. And it isn't necessary.

Last night I sat at our dining table with the people who bought our car, having a pleasant conversation and signing papers in an absolutely relaxed manner. Like I said, treating the other party in the transaction like you'd like to be treated if you were in their shoes goes a long way to making a car deal go smoothly and fairly.

Will our dog fit in a Nissan Leaf?

I have many unanswered questions.I'm still trying to learn the meaning of life, what will happen to me after I die, and why the Kardashian sisters are famous (I do have a guess: they're famous for being famous).

But today I focused on a query assigned to me by Laurel, my wife. "WIll our dog, Serena, comfortably fit into the Nissan Leaf electric car that we're poised to buy?

We'd made a stab at answering this question during our first test drive, learning that the $250 cargo floor organizer included by the manufacturer on the car earmarked for us produces a dog-friendly flat area behind the rear seats -- which otherwise is marked by a cavernous hole.

But after taking another test drive yesterday, my wife came home concerned that the entire cargo area has less vertical room than our Prius when the rear seats are folded. So the question became, "Could our Lab/Shepherd mix stand up in the rear compartment?"

Surprisingly, a Google search of Nissan Leaf large dog fit turned up zero information about how other people had addressed this hugely important issue. It isn't exactly a car-buying deal breaker for us, but we want to be sure that the family pet isn't condemned to awkward crouching when she rides in the Leaf.

Scientific testing clearly was called for.

"I'll take Serena with me to the Corvallis Nissan dealership today," I told Laurel. "I'll measure the height of the cargo space in the rear compartment, comparing it to our Prius, and also put Serena into a Leaf to see how she fits."

Laurel wasn't sure whether the dealership would be wild about having a dog take a "test sit/stand." My attitude, though, was that car salesman probably have experienced weird customer behavior that far surpasses a simple request to see how our dog fits in a Leaf.

After all, we weren't bringing in a bunch of pigs to see how many could be crammed in the cargo compartment. Or a baby elephant.

As I suspected, when I got to the dealership one of the salesmen was happy to unlock "our" car, then stand aside and watch the experiment unfold. I folded the rear seats down, then took Serena's dog pad out of our Mini Cooper and put it in the Leaf to minimize the chance of leaving dog hair all over the car.

The first things I learned were (1) Serena was happy to settle down in the car, (2) So happy, I had no chance of taking a photo with my iPhone while she was still standing up after I'd lifted her into the rear compartment.

So now I knew what was already known: a 65 pound dog can lie down in the back of a Leaf with her head comfortably below the ceiling. But what if the dog stood up? Further experimentation was required.

Which brought me to realization (3): I knew how to make Serena sit by (no surprise) saying "sit," but I had no idea how to make her stand while I stood back, iPhone in hand, ready to take a photo of a standing dog.

"Stand, Serena, stand!" had zero effect. Pulling her up by the collar worked better. However by the time I dashed around to a door and snapped a photo, all I caught was a dog butt at the (appropriately) rear end of the cargo area.

This helped to confirm, though, what I'd already learned from a tape measure. Our dog is about 27 inches tall at the shoulder. The height of the Leaf cargo compartment is about 27 3/4 inches. So if Serena stood up, her body would come close to the ceiling, while she'd have to lower her head a bit.

(The height of the cargo compartment in our 2007 Prius, by contrast, is about 28 3/4 inches, an inch taller -- seemingly because the rear seats aren't as thick, because the rear seat head room in the two cars is exactly the same).

I was still determined to get a photo of Serena standing up close to the front seats. By this time the salesman probably had concluded that he'd already gotten all of the entertainment value from watching me try to maneuver our dog around in the car while clutching my iPhone, so he diplomatically said, "Maybe you'll have better luck if I'm not standing close by."

(Instead of, This is boring the crap out of me, which likely would have been closer to the truth.)

The photo above is a great shot of a dog resisting her owner's urging to stand up in a Nissan Leaf. Serena has her fussy face on as she settles back into a lying position after I got her to briefly semi-stand and rushed to click the camera app on my iPhone.

My next move was to back off from the car, stand by an open rear door, and wait for Serena to stand up on her own. This produced realization (4): our dog is willing to lie on her dog pad in a Nissan Leaf for a considerably longer time than I'm willing to stand next to a car in a dealership's parking lot, iPhone in hand, while customers and employees wonder what the heck is going on.

Eventually I gave up and snapped another photo of our dog stretched out horizontally, which told me nothing new about Serena's ability to comfortably stand up in the car, but at least made me feel that I'd hadn't completely wasted my time in the parking lot.

Moving to the rear compartment, I made a last stab at issuing "Serena, stand!" commands in my best Dog Whisperer voice. As you can see, by this stage in the experiment the family pet had decided to completely ignore me, as evidenced by her haughty German Shepherd'ish you want me to do what, sucker? look.

(Serena's personality is a blend of her Shepherd and Lab sides, independent/aloof while also good natured/gentle.)

In the end I got some good information, though no conclusive photograph evidence of our dog comfortably standing up in the back of a Nissan Leaf. I'm convinced that Serena would fit just fine in the car.

And while driving home to Salem I pondered the fact that when humans get into a car they crouch down before sitting down on a seat. So why are we even worrying about whether our dog can stand up in the car? What if we had a Great Dane? Would we have to buy a van for the dog to travel in, so it could stand up?

However, we probably do need to figure out how to put up a dog barrier in the Leaf that would prevent her from sailing over the front seats in the event of an accident, whether Serena is lying down or standing up.

Bottom line: for $34,795 (before tax credits) it is possible to give a 65 pound Shepherd/Lab mix a ride in a Nissan Leaf. Such is my contribution to automotive science based on today's research.

What I learned from a cut phone line

Life has a way of teaching me lessons, even though I have no idea who the instructor is. I mean, who the hell is this guy called "Life" anyway? Everybody talks about him, but I've never seen the dude.

Well, whoever or whatever LIfe is, here's what I learned today: don't assume; keep your cool; be positive about people until you can't help being negative.

This was a pretty weird experience, now that I think about it in the calm of a pleasantly cool September Oregon evening, blogging on our deck while listening to nearby crickets cricketing and distant owls hooting.

Last night somebody from Salem's Cascade Paving phoned and asked, "Is it OK if we pave your driveway tomorrow?" Whoa, short notice. We'd been bugging the company to tell us when the repaving of our crumbling driveway would happen, though, so I quickly said "sure, come on out."

When the first wave of guys arrived at about eight am (paving involves a lot of workers, trucks, and equipment), I made it a point to tell both the foreman and another guy about the phone line that runs beneath the driveway.

"No problem," they told me. "We're only removing some damaged asphalt before repaving; there won't be any digging down as far as the phone line."

OK. That made sense. I was reassured. I'd mentioned to them in a semi-joking fashion how important our DSL was to my life, so if our Internet connection went down they'd be the first to know.

Which, around noon, happened just as I'd feared.

I wondered why a web page wasn't reloading. Then I wondered why no web pages were loading. Then I picked up a phone, heard the silence of no dial tone, and wondered no more. The profanities that echoed through my brain were, thankfully, confined to my cranium.

But I was eager to dash out to the driveway and tell the Cascade Paving foreman that they'd cut our phone line and had damn well better get it fixed pronto.

I was filled with righteous indignation, because I'd just warned the workers about the phone line, and also had talked about it with the owner of the company who came out and gave us a bid.

Stomping out in my Teva sandals as best I could (it's hard to stomp in the very lightweight Zilch design), I found the foreman inexplicably using a backhoe to dig a hole in a brushy area on the left side of the driveway -- exactly where the phone line is buried on its way to our house.

What the hell? I thought. Why would a paving company dig a hole in our field when they're supposed to be working on the driveway? I walked up to the backhoe, which had a glassed-in cab.

The foreman stopped digging. He opened the window. "You cut our phone line!" I said. "We'll fix it," he told me. "Either we'll take care of it or we'll call the phone company." Then he shut the window and went back to working on the hole.

I looked into the hole. I saw a bunch of loose dirt, but no sign of the phone line. I figured it was covered up.

I stomped, sandal-wise, back to our house.

I wanted to phone the Cascade Paving main office to tell them how irritated I was. How could their guys cut our phone line when I'd told them exactly where it was??!! And what were they doing digging a hole in that field with a backhoe??!!

Fortunately, in retrospect, we have such crappy iPhone service where we live (thanks for nothing, AT&T) I kept getting cut off mid-rant each time I started to talk to the pleasant-sounding woman who answered the phone at Cascade Paving.

Eventually I figured that she'd gotten my basic message: Our phone line was cut and you need to fix it NOW!

I decided to drive into Salem where my iPhone would work fine and I could rant to Cascade Paving at my leisure on a strong cellular connection. Plus, I needed to do some grocery shopping.

Walking past the workers, I tried to be as pleasant as I could be, given how pissed I was that they'd trashed our phone line and DSL service.

Heading to my car, which I'd parked on Lake Drive, one of the workers said, "Wow, you've got some nasty yellow jackets out here. Everybody got at least one sting." Whoa. Time for mental reset. Adjust assumptions, adjust assumptions!

The foreman working the controls of the backhoe had been too busy to tell me what was going on. He was trying to protect his workers from getting any more stings. They'd figured out where the yellow jacket hole was, and were removing the nest with the backhoe -- which made sense, because walking up to angry yellow jackets with a can of spray in your hand isn't a good idea.

(My wife and I know a lot about dealing with yellow jackets; we're ruthless killers of them, if they're creating a problem around the house or on a path.)

Facts. Reality. Truth. These are useful. I need to give them more attention than I often do.

I'd assumed that our phone line had been cut for no good reason, that the Cascade Paving guys had done something stupid, that I was entirely justified to complain about going Internet-less for, oh-my-God!, hours.

Instantly, my understanding of the situation changed. I'd jumped to an erroneous conclusion. I could have said to myself, "I don't know why the foreman is digging a hole and cut our phone line; I should find out before I get upset with him."

But no, it was all too easy to bask in my hot tub of steaming indignation. I can't say that I enjoyed feeling aggrieved, put upon, victimized by incompetence. However, I felt a certain satisfaction in my (untrue) knowledge that I'd been right about being careful around the phone line, and the workers had been wrong.

Later that afternoon a Cascade Paving employee who I hadn't seen before knocked on our door. He told me that he'd be splicing the phone line. I said, "Hey, if you ever leave Cascade Paving, you can go to work for the phone company." He told me, "That's where I used to work."

Nice. I was feeling better fast.

I felt completly fine when he knocked again in a few minutes and asked if our phone was working. I checked. Yes, it was. How about the DSL? I hurried to my laptop. Yes, the DSL was working also. Life was back to normal.

Not without some lessons learned, though. I shouldn't have thought the worst of workers who previously had seemed highly competent. Plus, a neighbor expert in the ways of paving had hired Cascade Paving to handle his own driveway. He'd told me that the crew who worked at his house was careful, skilled, personable.

Just as the guys who did our driveway work were. I was led astray for a while, though, by failing to realize that what seemed so obviously correct to me actually was wrong.

Hmmmm?

Could I be wrong about other things that seem obviously correct to me? Jeez, I hope not. That'd be even more disturbing than losing our Internet connection for an afternoon was.

 

Buy our 2007 Prius! Just 36,500 miles on it!

[Our car has been sold. Sorry, would-be Prius buyers. Disappointingly, the couple who bought the car learned about it via an AutoTrader listing, not this blog post. We ended up selling it for $16,000, which is about what I expected to get -- once I realized that nobody was going to pay $1 million for a 2007 Prius Touring, unless it was made of gold.]

I've never wanted to be a real-life car salesman, but it's kind of fun to play one in a blog post...

BUY, BUY, BUY! -- THIS CAR WON'T BE IN OUR DRIVEWAY FOR LONG!
Wow, a 2007 Prius Touring with only 36,500 miles for hundreds less than the NADA clean retail value of $18,175!

Only $16,495. Gosh, my wife and I are almost giving away this car.

Plus, it's got brand new tires -- a recent gift from the Toyota Lifetime Tire Replacement deal that came with the car when we bought it new.

We're getting a Nissan Leaf, an electric car that will move us up the Green Food Chain. So the Prius has to GO, GO, GO!

Check out the car's details on our Auto Trader ad. Or, our Craigslist ad. The CarFax vehicle report is here. This is one CLEAN CAR -- CarFax says it is worth $160 above retail book value.

But we're asking hundreds less than the NADA clean retail value of $18,175. Why? I don't know... I guess we're crazy! Come see us and buy the Prius before we regain our sanity.

This isn't a regular old Prius, it's a Touring model. Better suspension. Tighter handling. Larger spoiler. HID headlights. You can trick this baby out even more and be the envy of a high school parking lot.

It's got stability control and traction control.
It's got keyless entry.
It's got a LCD display that provides countless hours of informative motoring fun.

Oh, did I mention automatic climate control?
And check this out: cup holders! Along with a steering wheel!

It's in great condition -- just one small ding on the front passenger side door, which we've accounted for in the asking price. And that simply adds character to the car, like Cindy Crawford's mole. Kelly Blue Book says our Prius is in "Good" condition.

Good, for sure. We go further and say this is a GREAT car.

Why we didn't buy our Leaf from Salem Nissan

Us bloggers believe in giving businesses praise when praise is due, and also publicizing buying turn-offs. So here's how I just replied to an email from Salem (Oregon) Nissan.

I'd gotten a message from Salem Nissan asking if we were still in the market for a car that included this request:

If you are no longer looking or would like to be removed from my follow-up list, please send a quick note to let me know.

I did just that, saying "We're buying a Leaf from the Corvallis Nissan dealer, so you can take us off your follow-up list." When I was asked why Corvallis, rather than locally, I responded with:

CJ, I appreciate your asking the question that you did: why are we rural south Salem residents purchasing our Nissan Leaf from the Corvallis dealership, rather than locally? Here's the explanation:

Salem Nissan was the initial dealer we requested a quote from. In fact, it was the initial dealer twice, because after we received a go-ahead from Nissan Central that it was possible to take action on our Leaf reservation, we contacted Salem Nissan, then changed our mind about getting a Leaf, and then changed our mind about changing our mind -- contacting Salem Nissan again after we'd decided to get a Leaf.

(As you know, Nissan Central only allows prospective Leaf-buyers to contact one dealer at a time.)

After Salem Nissan was contacted, several "turnoffs" transpired. First, I was told that it wasn't possible to test drive a Leaf, or to even see a Leaf at the dealership. I told the salesman, with more than a little incredulity, "So this means that we're supposed to fork out $35,000 for a car that we've never driven, nor even seen in person?"

He explained that all Leafs exported to this country were earmarked for consumer purchase, so dealers couldn't get an "extra" car to have as a demonstrator. I have no reason to believe that this is untrue. However, after we did additional research we learned that both the McMinnville and Corvallis Nissan dealerships had Leafs that could be seen and driven (reportedly at McMinnvile a Leaf even could be taken home overnight).

In Corvallis, the main Leaf salesman/expert purchased one of the first Leafs to be sold in the United States (#3, I believe). I'm pretty sure this also is true of the McMinnville Nissan dealership, as we've heard that the Leaf salesman/expert there also is a early owner of a car, along with being an enthusiastic proponent of this pioneering electric vehicle -- and EV technology in general.

At the Salem dealership, by contrast, I talked with someone who was neither highly knowledgeable nor enthusiastic, and certainly wasn't a Leaf owner himself. So it was a breath of fresh air to tell Nissan Central that we wanted to switch from the Salem to the Corvallis dealership, and then to hear from the Corvallis salesman, "Yes, we have a Leaf you can drive. And if it isn't available, you can drive my personal car."

We've been told that the Corvallis dealership has sold over fifty Leafs. I don't know how many Leafs your Salem dealership has sold, but I suspect it is in the single digits. Which brings me to another reason why we didn't buy a Leaf in Salem.

When I told the salesman at your dealership that we really needed to test drive a Leaf (this was before we learned that such was possible in Corvallis and McMinnville), he offered to contact the first people in Salem who got a Leaf and ask them if they'd be willing to show us their car. This seemed a bit strange to me -- shouldn't a dealer be able to show prospective buyers of a $35,000 car a demo vehicle without enlisting the aid of a customer? But I said, "Sure, give them my name and phone number."

I never heard from the Leaf owners, who turned out to be a couple in west Salem who are avid environmentalists. Several times I reminded the Salem Nissan salesman about this, and he kept assuring me that he'd given the early Leaf owners my name and that I should be hearing from them. Again, I never did. Throughout, I wrongly assumed that they had purchased their Leaf from Salem Nissan.

Eventually I remembered that our local newspaper, the Statesman Journal, had published a piece about these early Leaf adopters. (A Google search showed that some "green" blogs had also linked to the newspaper story.) So it wasn't difficult to find their names, look in the phone book, and give them a call.

I've talked with the woman of the family several times. She is highly enthusiastic about the Nissan Leaf. She also is highly negative about Salem Nissan. This probably explains why she ignored the request from the Salem Nissan salesman to phone us. I was told that she and her husband initially contacted Salem Nissan about buying a Leaf, but found the dealership uninformed and uninterested in the car. They ended up having a very satisfying buying experience at the McMinnville Nissan dealer.

Look: buying a Leaf, or any electric car, is a whole different experience from buying any other vehicle. My wife and I have had lots of questions, anxieties, worries. We couldn't have gotten over the electric car-buying hurdle without sales advice that was well-informed, honest, and personable. Plus, it helped a lot to be talking with a salesman at the Corvallis dealership who owns a Leaf himself and knows the car's idiosyncrasies first hand.

If Salem Nissan wants to be a player in what hopefully will be a rapidly growing and evolving marketplace, your dealership needs to commit to this electric vehicle. Enthusiasm is contagious. Customers can tell when a car salesman doesn't know much about a car he/she is trying to sell. Most people interested in an electric car are environmentally aware, scientifically/technologically literate, and turned off by a traditional car-selling approach.

Here's a final comment along that line: both times I contacted Salem Nissan, I asked for a quote by email -- what the cost of the Leaf equipped as we wanted would be, and what the monthly lease payment would be if we went that buying route. Both times I got a phone call from the salesman, even though the second time I asked for a quote I emailed Salem Nissan and said "Don't call me; email me; I want a written quote."

Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"? This is a whole other subject: what turns people off about car dealerships and the car-buying process.

Today I talked with several guys at a neighborhood garage sale about this. We agreed that when car salesmen play games with a customer, it is a major turn-off. All three of us agreed that walking away from a dealership when this occurs is not only justified, but essential. Unfortunately, we also agreed that car dealerships in Salem tend to be considerably less buyer-friendly than dealerships in some other nearby towns (like Corvallis, Albany, McMinnville).

Hopefully Salem Nissan will get its electric car act together. I'm confident that electric cars have a  bright future in Oregon, especially since our state is one of six with a grant to build Level 3 (fast) charging stations along major highways.

    --Brian

We test drive a Nissan Leaf. How dog friendly is it?

So there we are today, looking over a blue 2011 Nissan Leaf, all 100% electric and high techy, wondering if we should go ahead and buy the car after putting down a $500 deposit on it upon learning from Russ Goodyear at Corvallis' Jack Scoville Nissan that a Leaf could be ours much sooner than expected, owing, I believe, to someone cancelling an order for this car.

Russ is ready to show us its technological marvels, and let us take our first test drive, but first Laurel needed to closely inspect the car's dog friendliness. How comfortably and safely would Serena, our eleven year old, 65 pound, Lab/Shepherd mix, ride in a Leaf?

Nissan engineers probably didn't factor this concern into their design process. But my wife expressed worries about the cavernous "hole" in the rear luggage area. Yes, the rear seats could be folded flat. Our dog, though, wouldn't fit on them. Apparently she'd have to curl up in the hole, which didn't look too appealing to us.

Russ, astute salesman that he is, recognized that a $35,000 sale (before $7,500 federal and $1,500 state tax credits) of perhaps the most futuristic car made today might hinge on how well a dog could fit in it. So he fetched the Leaf cargo box accessory and installed it while we looked over the car.

This produced a nice flat area behind the rear seats. However, the hatchback opening is high compared to our 2007 Prius, and even with the Prius we have to help our aging dog into the car.

Laurel preferred the idea of having Serena get in through a rear door and travel on the folded rear seats. Now, though, a new problem surfaced: the gap between the front of the seats and the back of the front seats. Our beloved family pet could slip a leg or two into the opening with possibly injurious results.

Russ thought that a "sling" was available for the Leaf similar to a device we have in our Prius. It covers up the gap between the folded rear seats and the front seats, producing a continuous dog-friendly surface in the rear compartment. We're going to look into this.

Once our dog concerns had been addressed, Laurel got in the driver's seat and I crawled in the back. Russ told us about Leaf features from the passenger seat as Laurel cruised around.

We were curious about how the car sounded, having read that some people are bothered by the whine of the electric motor. (A low speed sound alert system can be shut off with a button push, but the motor obviously can't.)

My hearing isn't as good as Laurel's is, especially when it comes to high frequency sounds. Laurel and the comparatively youthful Russ could clearly hear the sound of the motor, especially as the car accelerated. To me, the Leaf had a barely noticeable "distant jet plane" sound at times which wasn't at all bothersome.

I also got to drive the Leaf. Quite a bit actually, because Laurel wanted to concentrate on motor noises while I cruised up and down some Corvallis hills as Russ offered driving directions. The interior is appealing.

I like how the Leaf handles. The heavy battery in the mid-section of the car helps make it feel stable in turns. The car has a "zippy" feel, even though the 0-60 time must be mediocre. Press on the "gas" (rather, accelerator pedal) and the Leaf zooms forward with surprising quickness.

We experimented with the Leaf's Eco mode. This seemed to add about eight miles to the car's predicted range when it was turned on. Acceleration is mushier, though still acceptable to Laurel and me.

Surprisingly, the car's display showed a range of 85 miles when we left the dealership, and it had barely changed by the time we returned in half an hour or so. My "range anxiety" diminished quite a bit after I saw how clearly the Leaf's electronic displays let you know about what's going on with the battery.

Here's one thing we learned from our test drive: Leaf owners are hugely enthusiastic. When we walked into the dealership, a couple of guys who owned Leafs were chatting with each other while one of their cars got a 240 volt Level 2 charge (which takes quite a bit of time).

Walking up to them, I said that we had a deposit on the blue Leaf and were trying to decide whether to purchase it. One of the men, who looked to be in his 70's, loudly proclaimed, "If you leave without buying that car, you're making a big mistake!"

I liked their contagious enthusiasm about all things Leaf'ish. I soon got the sense that Leaf owners become part of an electric car "cult," and I'm using that term in its most positive sense.

Namely, a pioneering group who are happy to be blazing new gasoline-free trails, even when this involves some difficulties.

For example, apparently there is only one Level 3 fast charging station in Oregon (30 minutes for an 80% battery charge), so one of the guys who lives on the Oregon coast was spending several hours at the Nissan dealership as his Leaf got enough juice for the trip home via a Level 2 charger.

Level 3 charging stations soon will be built along Oregon's I-5 corridor and elsewhere, though. The electric car revolution has just begun. I like the idea of being part of the first wave of pioneers. Hey, cults can be fun!

Next week we'll come to grips with our Nissan Leaf buying decision, maybe after Cherry City Electric comes out and confirms that our garage is suitable for a free Level 2 charging station, which would make buying a Leaf several thousand dollars less expensive.

Warning: corn is more dangerous than it looks

Ears of corn. They seem so natural, so innocent, all wrapped up in their tight green leafy kimonos, begging to be stripped naked and devoured with lustful buttery zeal.

(Guess I've been watching too much Stephen Colbert "cornography.")

But when you get them home... watch out.

Yesterday I found out how dangerous corn can be. I don't want anyone else to suffer needlessly like I did, so I'm getting my story out onto the Internet in hopes of saving other innocent victims from what I've gone through.

I stopped at a farm stand where I've been buying fruit all summer. After getting a box of berries, I noticed that corn now was available. Unthinkingly, not recognizing the danger I was putting myself in, I bought six ears.

They looked so fresh, I decided to eat one for an energy boost before heading off on my late afternoon dog walk. Not wanting to delay the family pet's Big Joy in Life, sticking an ear in the microwave seemed the fastest cooking option.

I chose four minutes. On high. In a covered glass bowl with some water inside. Good choice. When I took the cover off and felt the kernels they seemed just right: firmly soft, taut yet yielding.

After adding some butter and salt I took my first bite. Which was almost instantly followed by my first profanity. Goddamn hot! So hot, I couldn't believe it, because I'd let the ear of corn cool for, oh, I don't know, can't remember exactly, but it was at least 30 seconds.

Plenty of time for a large ear of corn to reach a comfortable eating temperature after only being in a microwave on high for four minutes. Plenty.

So, scientifically minded guy that I am, I repeated the experiment to see if my initial results were a statistical anomaly. Maybe just a few corn molecules had bucked the thermodynamic entropic odds, ending up in a hotter state rather than cooler after being removed from the microwave, and I'd had the bad luck of eating them.

I had a second bite. And uttered a second profanity. Goddamn hot! Now I could feel some burned spots inside my mouth even though by this time the corn had cooled for well over a minute.

It just didn't seem possible that an ear of corn could stay so hot for so long. Given the unlikelihood that it could, I continued to eat the corn, ritualistically uttering Goddamn hot! after each bite.

This morning, when I brushed my teeth, I could feel how tender the inside of my mouth was. The damn corn had seriously burned me!

The first person I warned about corn today was my wife. When I told her how dangerous corn could be, describing in detail how I carefully prepared an ear of corn yet still was burned by it, she said:

"This is why women live longer than men."

Why she came up with this uncompassionate response is beyond me. There was no warning sign at the farm stand -- or better, attached to each ear of corn -- alerting consumers to the risks of cooking corn in a microwave and then eating it.

What the hell is the Food and Drug Adminstration doing? Why hasn't the Product Safety Commission stepped in? I can't believe that I'm the first overly-trusting purchaser of corn who thought he was buying a safe vegetable.

How many more people are going to needlessly suffer after biting into a microwaved ear of corn? How many more innocent people will have their pain amplified by repeated mouth-burnings, as happened to me?

Even one more is too many. So forward this blog post to friends, relatives, co-workers, and loved ones -- especially those at greatest risk.

On the off chance my wife is correct, focus on the men you know.

In praise of a certain insanity

"This is insane... this is insane... this is insane."

That was my mental mantra in the early afternoon today, after I'd been using my DR Field Mower for about an hour on our toughest patch of untamed tall grass, brush, and an ungodly number of trees that Laurel and I planted years ago in the midst of the grass and brush, each of which requires maneuvering the heavy walk-behind mower around it.

Like I've said before, it's hell. Also, heaven.

There’s a point when my mowing hell turns to heaven. It’s when my shirt is soaked through with sweat, the water bottle strapped to my hip is empty, my socks are filled with burrs, my arms are bleeding from limb scratches, and I’ve told the trees how I feel about them by running through every creative string of obscenities in my repertoire.

Bliss.

I’m hot. I’m dead on my feet. I’m dusty. And I feel undeniably real. There’s a reality to my blogging, to my meditating, to my talking with friends, to my Tai Chi, to my watching “The Daily Show.” And then there’s the fucking reality of spending six fucking hours under the July sun mowing fields filled with fucking trees that take a fucking lot of energy to miss.

It’s just so fucking wonderful.

Today there were some new wrinkles to the hellish, heavenish, insanity that, when I'm done for the day and have returned the mower to our garage, suddenly seems like the most mentally healthy thing I could possibly do.

What you can't see in the photo above is my absolutely soaked nature. Courtesy, naturally, of nature. After sweating through my Oregon Ducks t-shirt, it started to rain. Heavily. Really unusual for this time of year.

So now, instead of wrestling the mower through super tall grass and around those damned trees we'd planted (this is a photo of a neighboring area that wasn't mowed), I was doing all that in a downpour, getting my sweat mixed with rain drops until my dirty shirt was a dripping mass of clammy goop.

This was the point when this is insane...this is insane... this is insane reached it's loudest level in my head.

It's tough to describe how tough it is to mow this particular field.

Aside from the aforementioned damned trees that have to be maneuvered around, there's a giant downed trunk of an oak tree, other woody obstructions lying hidden in the tall grass, rough ground, large branches that have to be ducked under while steering the mower, and a variety of other challenges that make this The Field From Hell on our property.

Yet it looks so nice, so peaceful, so bucolic, when the mowing is finished.

Here's what struck me today about insanity of this sort: that's what life is all about, doing insane stuff. Raising a child is insane. Going to college is insane. Riding a bicycle from Seattle to Portland is insane. Losing twenty pounds is insane.

And yes, mowing a bumpy, tree and brush strewn field like this, where the grass starts off as tall as a deer's eye, at the age of 62 with a walk-behind DR mower that requires a lot of muscling even with the newer model's reverse gear (thank you for that, DR!) -- this also is insane.

As soon as I realized this, as soon as I embraced the insanity of doing a really difficult job that I simultaneously hated and loved, suddenly this is insane... felt a lot different.

I can't say that I started to enjoy my mowing. "Enjoy" isn't the right word for what it feels like to experience this sort of insanity. I doubt that someone climbing the last few hundred feet to the summit of Mt. Everest is enjoying his or her oxygen-deprived steps.

But like I said in my previous field mowing post, life is a succession of insanities. It's insane that each of us is here, alive and conscious, some 14 billion years after the Big Bang banged the universe into existence.

I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. I know that there will come a day—when I’m 70, 80, 90, some day—when I can’t do this any more. But Laurel will have to pry that DR mower out of my hands. Hopefully they won’t be cold and dead.

But there would be worse ways to go. I wouldn’t mind taking my last breath holding onto the handles of my longtime DR companion, out in a hot field with sweat rolling down my face, cursing those trees.

Which, as I’m sure you know by now, I dearly love.

And it's insane that we each have just a few years to experience existence. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, even a hundred -- our time is so short, so precious, it's insane that we aren't looking upon every living moment with a Wow! that it deserves.

I don't remember what an old Sean Connery movie was about, just the title: "A Fine Madness." Great title.

There have been times in my life when I thought I was going crazy. Other times, when I was afraid of being overly sane. I guess I'm living one of those times now. Today I felt wonderfully real, alive, and content when this is insane changed from a negative to a positive, from a feeling to be shunned to a feeling to be embraced.

Yeah, this week I've spent quite a few hours sweating my way through mowing fields of tall grass that will be just as high next year about this time, when I'll do it again, cursing the grass, the trees, the rough ground, the brambles, the branches that hit me in the face, the whole goddamn insane experience.

But you know what? Doing stuff like this is what keeps me from going crazy. Go figure. I sure can't.

My wife rescues a gopher snake caught in netting

I don't like snakes.

So when I saw my wife standing outside on our deck, knocking excitedly on our locked sliding glass door, yelling "I need some manicure scissors to save a snake," I was pretty damn impressed with her animal-compassion.

I rushed to a bathroom drawer and found the scissors. Later I heard another knock. And saw...

Wow. Now I was super-impressed.

I've never even touched a snake, much less held a large one up in the air. This iPhone photo doesn't do justice to the size of the gopher snake. Here's how Laurel described her snake adventure in an email to her family.

Yesterday I spent about an hour or more rescuing a large gopher snake from entanglement in a big wad of netting we had used to cover some big windows to deter a randy robin from waking us up every dawn during nesting season (as the robin tried to attack its reflection in our big bedroom windows).

Brian had left the netting in a wad on the back patio, thinking we might need it again. I found the snake terribly stuck in it, as it tried to stretch through, one end in and one end out. Only a few inches of the head was out, with about 5 inches wound inside the wad, and about 2 1/2 feet of it still outside in the back.

The more it tried to get through, the tighter the plastic caught it, and it couldn't retreat because of the scales on its bottom. The plastic netting did not tear, and just stretched very tight around it's body in a number of places.

I had Brian get a little finger nail scissors, and I worked at cutting the bands that were tightly stuck on its body, as it writhed around and hissed at me. However, once I relieved some of the bands and got a certain amount freed up, it seemed to know I was helping it and calmed down, stopped hissing, and reduced the writhing.

It was a little creepy when it would wind its tail  around my leg, but I had to get it free. Finally I got it free of the mass of netting, and it was calm enough that i got the remaining bands cut. I managed to carefully cut the bands without drawing any blood, and just messing up a few scales.

I had my grubby clothes on, so I may not look too great, but I brought the snake to show Brian when it was freed and he took my picture with it and the wad of black netting it had gotten into (apparently thinking it was some sort of dirt). It doesn't look that big in the picture, but if you notice, the head goes off to the right after a bend. In all it was pretty long.

So, I guess plastic debris on the ground can be just as bad for wildlife as plastic debris in the sea.

Apple solves my half-disappeared Arial "p" problem

A few days ago my MacBook Pro lost half of it's Arial "p." I've got no idea how this happened. All I know is that certain web sites which use the Arial font (Google, for one) suddenly were weird to read.

Picture a "p" that's missing it's straight vertical line. What's left is a backward "c." Well, if I looked closely I could discern a faint shadow of the missing "p" line. It was very hard to see, though.

When I phoned Apple support the first guy I talked to was mystified. He checked on his computer to see if any other Macintosh user had complained about a half-disappeared Arial lower case "p."

Nope.

There was nothing in the Apple computer knowledge base about this. I sensed that the support guy wasn't totally convinced that my problem was real. Couldn't blame him, given what I was saying.

All I want is the other half of my MacBook's Arial 'p' back. Can't you give me a download of the missing straight line? The other Arial numbers and letters are fine. I'm just missing half of the lower case 'p.' This is irritating, though. I never realized how many words have a 'p' in them until I tried to read Google search results where every 'p' looked like a backward 'c.'

If I was him, I would have done just what he did. "I'm going to transfer you to a font specialist," he told me. "Hopefully he can help you, because I have no idea what to do."

I love Apple support.

Every time I call for assistance with a problem (I always buy Apple Care along with a new device; it's well worth the money) I get to talk with highly competent, courteous, friendly support staff. Yesterday was no exception.

The font specialist was on the phone almost instantly after Stumped Support Guy transferred me. After hearing my sad tale of the missing straight line on my Arial 'p,' he also dug into the Apple support history/ knowledge base/ or whatever it's called.

I was on hold for a few minutes while he did this.

When he came back on the line, I was told: "Nobody has ever had this problem before." "Wow! I'm unique," I said. "That's great. I suspected this when I Googled Safari Arial font missing p and got zero relevant hits. How often does that happen with a Google search?"

Not surprisingly, the font specialist wanted to rule out customer insanity, bad eyesight, or a late April Fool's joke before spending any more time with me. He didn't express himself that directly, simply saying "I'd like you to email me a screenshot of what you're talking about."

"No problem," i replied. "I've already got screenshots of how the Arial font looks in Font Book [Apple's font manager]. Also, in Pages, where the lower case 'p' is missing it's straight line too."

Here's what I sent the font specialist:

About a minute after I sent off an email to the guy, he came back on the phone. "You're right," he said. "I see what you mean. This is really strange. I've never seen anything like this."

Somehow one half of one lower case letter in the Arial font library had gotten screwed up. I recalled that a recent Apple Software Update included an item that had something to do with fonts. But I couldn't understand how this could produce a half-disappeared 'p.'

If you ever have this problem -- and there's an extremely little chance that you will -- here's how Apple support solved it. The font specialist had me restart my MacBook in safe mode (by holding down the shift key after clicking "restart").

My computer took a long time to restart in safe mode. The font specialist stayed on the phone with me as I relayed fascinating status information to him. "Nothing yet... little ball is still whirling around... still nothing... ooh ooh, a blue screen!... we're getting somewhere."

When I looked at Font Book in safe mode, there was no Arial font at all. The support guy seemed sort of surprised at this. Then he said, "Restart your computer normally."

I wasn't expecting much, given that we hadn't changed anything on my MacBook other than to start it up in safe mode. But this produced some sort of font magic, because after it started up normally the straight line on Arial's lower case 'p' had returned.

Apple support came through again. Hanging up the phone, my computer's Arial 'p' restored to its usual shape, I felt a warm glow toward all things Apple'ish.

This is how a tech company succeeds: make great products; and when something goes wrong with them, offer great customer support.

 

What I like most about my 2011 Mini Cooper S

About three months ago, after my Mini Cooper S hardtop (pepper white with black roof) arrived from England and I drove it home for the first time, I predicted that the car would bring me perfect happiness.

Since so far I've only been able to drive the Mini from Portland to Salem, then around town here a bit, I can't be 100% confident that this car-of-my-dreams will bring me the unalloyed happiness that I so richly deserve after having postponed the consummation of my Mini love affair for eight freaking years.

First impressions matter a lot, though.

And after spending ninety minutes or so with my new best mechanical friend, I can tell that we're going to get along great. Why, look -- my beloved Thermos coffee mug fits perfectly in the front seat cup holder.

Many other features of the 2011 Mini Cooper S are equally appealing to me. But I'll leave descriptions of most of those for other blog posts once I've had more time to familiarize myself with the appealingly quirky nature of the Mini.

This is a down payment on that last promise. I'll focus not on the Mini's overall driving experience, which is terrific, but on the options I ordered which have turned out to be excellent buying decisions.

For me, at least. Your results may vary.

But if you're thinking of buying a Mini Cooper and having one built the way you want it, how I feel about some options after 1,400 miles of driving time will give you some additional info to consider.

Automatic windshield wipers. I wasn't sure about whether they'd work, but when I was pondering this option with a Rasmussen Mini salesman in Portland, Oregon, he assured me that the automatic wipers turned on and off just fine.

Which, they do. I'm really glad I ordered them.

Here in the Northwest rain is a frequent fact of life. It's great to have the car do the windshield wipers thinking for me: whether they should be on interval or continuous, how fast they should move, when to turn them on and off.

There's a setting for how sensitive they are to drops on the windshield. I've bumped that up to "most sensitive" as this seems to work best for my taste in wiping rain away. As with the next two options, the automatic wipers allow me to think less about controls and pay more attention to the joy of driving my Mini.

Automatic transmission with manual shifting option. lt's been a long time since I had a car with only a manual transmission. So I ordered an automatic. Good choice. I can play around with manual shifting when I want to, either by pushing the gear selector with my right hand or pressing on the dual steering wheel paddle shifters with either thumb and forefinger.

Most of the time I drive around with the automatic in "Sport" mode. The car shifts and sounds subtly different. Not surprisingly, I'd describe the change as...sportier.

It seems to me that going Sport only reduces the mileage by less than one mile a gallon. In mixed city and country driving I get about 28 mpg in normal automatic mode and a bit over 27 mpg in Sport mode. I realize that many serious drivers eschew automatic transmissions, but I prefer to mindfully enjoying the whole Mini Cooper experience, rather than have part of my attention focused on what gear I'm in.

Automatic headlights. This is the first car I've owned where the lights automatically go on and off as needed. So far, I haven't ever overriden the car computer's decision. When the sun is about to set, the lights appropriately turn on. They seem to be biased toward "better on than off," which is the safest way to go.

As long as I'm talking about lights, I've chosen to turn on the daytime running lights option, as I'm a believer in this safety feature.

A few days ago I also turned on the "three click" lane change option, where you gently push on the turn signal lever and a light flashes one or three times. I like this feature, as you don't have to remember to turn off the turn signal after merely making a lane change.

Matching headliner. I made a wise decision to fork over $250, or whatever it was, to get a black headliner in the front seat area rather than the default cream color. Sitting in a car at the dealership, the cream color up top and black/gray down below seemed discordant and distracting.

Going all black makes the interior look a lot more harmonious to me. This is why I didn't get any of the accent color options for the front seat area. Maybe that would look good on some Minis, but I wanted to go for a more subdued look. The interior of the Mini is plenty quirky and eye-catching without any additional accents, to my eye.

White front turn signal lights. Yeah, they do look better on a pepper white Mini. Amber lights aren't very Feng Shui on my car, as they don't harmonize with the white/black exterior colors. Not a big deal, but when I walk up to my Mini from the front I often think "I'm glad I went with the white lights."

Xenon headlights. Nice. I'll admit that I was expecting an even more dramatic difference in night illumination, but I now agree with what the salesman told me: "Once you own a car with Xenon lights, you'll never go back to the regular kind."

Well, this is a rundown of how happy I've been with the major options that I ordered on my 2011 Mini Cooper S hardtop. I haven't regretted any of these decisions, nor have I longed for any option that I passed up.

Next post, I'll extol my Mini's driving and handling virtues.

Ethical struggle: how to order coffee in my own mug

Readers of this blog post likely will have two common reactions to it: "Brian, you have too much time on your hands" and "Brian, you think too much." I disagree. To both notions.

Ordering coffee is a subject of great importance to me. Ditto with using my brain to ponder matters of Great Importance (the thought just came to me that those words deserve capital letters).

So I've decided that it's time to bare my caffeinated soul.

I need to talk about the ethical quandary that arises almost every time I go into a coffee house and ask the barista to fill my much-beloved Thermos Stainless King 16 Ounce Travel Mug with some brew.

On the positive side, most coffee purveyors give me a reduced price for using my own mug. At Starbucks, its ten cents. At Salem Oregon's downtown Beanery, it's a marvelous thirty-five cents -- which makes a 16 ounce brewed coffee $1.55 instead of $1.90.

After ordering, though, some moral questions usually start to arise. Typically I hand my mug to the barista with a "16 ounces is up to the line" comment.

I say this because while the Beanery pumps coffee into containers of defined sizes, then pours the content of the 16 ounce container into my mug, other places (including Starbucks) have a more free-form approach to filling a customer's own mug.

Yesterday a Starbucks barista at the south Salem Fred Meyer store offered to give me a senior discount on a tall coffee when I handed her my mug. I told her, "But it holds a grande, 16 ounces." That quashed the deal. However, she said "Your mug looked like it held a tall."

Once I've communicated that an interior line in the Thermos mug marks the 16 ounce level, typically the barista asks "Do you need room?" (for milk).

The pause before I answer isn't a sign of a "senior moment." Rather, it's produced by my mind going into moral quandary mode. My legalistic side considers that since I'm paying for a 16 ounce coffee, I should get a full 16 ounces. Fill the mug up to the line, damn it!

But I do put milk into my coffee.

I just want the milk to be in addition to 16 ounces of coffee, not a replacement for part of the coffee. There's a problem, though, with offering up a simple "No" to the "Do you need room?" question.

The Thermos mug instructions say that liquids shouldn't be added above the "full" line, because the cap has to be screwed on in an open position. If it is closed, the vacuum can be so strong it's very difficult to push the lever from closed to open.

But if I add the amount of milk I like to a full 16 ounces of coffee in the mug, making the liquid level reach almost to the top of the container (ooh, I like breaking the Thermos rules!), I've found that the coffee/milk mixture will ooze through the holes in the lid as I screw it on.

If I'm careful it won't overflow the lid, just come close. This allows me to say "No, I don't need room" and still be able to add quite a bit of skim milk or half & half (depending on how overweight I feel that day) to my mug.

Morally I worry a bit, though, about how I've already gotten a discount for using my own mug, and then I'm able to get a full 16 ounces of coffee in my mug plus a lot of milk, while customers who get coffee in a store container have to ask for room (meaning, less coffee) if they want the same quantity of milk.

This isn't a huge deal to me, just a mild feeling of possible unfairness that I'm getting more coffee than other 16 ounce buyers are. (Remembering that the Thermos mug cost me $20 helps extinguish that feeling.)

My larger moral quandary comes when I'm in a rush and don't want to go through the fill to the brim and carefully screw on the mug top deal. I just want to quickly pour in some milk, close the lever on my mug, and dash out the coffee house door.

In this case, if I say "No, I don't need room," that's untrue. I do, because I don't have time to sip some black coffee and get the brew safely below the full line before adding my desired quantity of milk.

So if I've gotten a full 16 ounces of coffee, often I'll pour some out into a trash container in the middle of the milk bar, then grab the skim or half & half container. I feel sort of funny doing this, since this wouldn't have been necessary if I'd asked for room.

But I also don't like giving up my God Tao-given right to have 16 ounces of coffee put into my Thermos mug if I've paid for that amount.

This does, though, run the risk of splattering coffee on the floor of a coffee house where I get a full 16 ounces, add milk, and then quickly screw the top on my mug -- resulting in an overflow.

("Run the risk" isn't entirely accurate, since this exact scenario happened today as I was conducting research for this blog post. I choose not to name the Salem coffee purveyor where this happened, as I'd prefer not to have the owners use my name as an epithet when they wonder why it's necessary to clean their carpet earlier than they expected. Note: in my defense, carpets shouldn't be used as a floor covering near coffee bars.)

Well, I'll continue to struggle with my ethical quandary. Fortunately, my moral compass seems to function best, or at least most energetically, under the influence of caffeine.

Video tour of our Oregon garden, when it was -- shock! -- sunny

We have non-easy care landscaping. Our home's garden isn't a "mow it and forget about it" sort of place. It's filled with plantings that require a lot of attention from the two of us.

So I decided to take advantage of some sunshine this Memorial Day (annoyingly brief; it started raining again late in the afternoon) and conduct a video tour of our rural south Salem garden.

My thought was that if more people see it, we'd be able to divide all the time, money, and energy we pour into our yard by a greater number of eyeballs -- thereby leading us to feel that all of our work makes more sense from a garden viewing standpoint.

The most impressive part of my seven and a half minute iPhone video is that I had the courage to start off with a close-up of me. (I used the Multicorder app, which lets you switch between the front and back cameras of the iPhone 4).

I'd just gotten out of the shower and had barely dried my hair. In my younger days I would have worried about how I looked. But this is one of the advantages of becoming senior discount eligible: I've come to accept my geezerness to a much greater degree than I could have imagined a decade or two ago.

Anyway, have a look. For at least a couple of minutes... please... pretty please. Like I said, the more people who see our home's garden, the better we'll feel about spending so much effort on it.

 

Our electric car cup is full with a Leaf and i MiEV

OK, we don't actually have a Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi i yet. But I've finally been able to reserve a place in line to buy one of these cool electric cars, something that wasn't possible until recently.

While we were on a Maui vacation last month I read in the Honolulu paper about how Hawaii was going to be one of the first states where the Mitsubishi i MiEV would be introduced.

(This car is just called the "i," a strike against it. Anything that costs almost $30,000 should have more than one letter in its name. Plus, "i" doesn't sound green. And doesn't Apple control every use of a lower case "i" when it comes to selling a high tech product?)

Wondering what the other early introduction states would be, I leaped online and learned that California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii (a.k.a. the environmentally with-it states) would see the Mitsubishi i in early 2012.

Further, that it was possible to reserve one of the cars via a refundable $299 deposit. I did just that from our Maui condo's patio, having learned my lesson when I looked into the availability of the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf a few months ago.

The web sites of both car manufacturers basically told me tough luck.

They'd taken orders for all the Volts and Leafs they could sell for a while and said that later in 2011 prospective buyers would be graced with the opportunity to ask permission to fork out money for a car.

I found this irritating.

I sent emails to both Chevrolet and Nissan asking how serious they were about entering the electric (or quasi-electric, in the case of the Volt) car market, since they didn't seem like they wanted to make it easy for Prius owners like my wife and me to move up to a higher level of greenness.

So when I saw that Mitsubishi was inviting people to reserve a car now, I figured it made sense to make a $299 PayPal payment just in case the i (really Mitsubishi, you need a better name) turned out to be a winner.

I'm not convinced that an electric car is right for us.

But since we're a three car family now, after a Mini Cooper S entered my life and we kept our Toyota hybrids (Prius and Highlander), I figured that if we traded the Prius for an i or Leaf, short trips could be made on electricity and longer ones with our two gas guzzlers -- even if my wife and I needed to each separately drive over the 80-100 mile electric car range.

That's an optimistic range, by the way, from what I've been reading in various reviews. It assumes driving at a fairly low speed on level ground without much use of the heater or air conditioner.

But we live almost six miles from the Salem city limits, with some pretty large hills between us and our in-town errands. So before we buy an electric car, I'll need to do some testing to see how much range we've got at our disposal once we get into Salem (regenerative braking on downhill parts of Liberty Road could help with recharging).

I like the looks of the Mitsubishi i, but it's a bit too cute for my taste. And at first web site glance my wife thought it looked too small for her needs. The 80 mile claimed range also wasn't as appealing as the Nissan Leaf's supposed 100 mile range.

Thus I was thrilled to see an email from Nissan pop up in my inbox this morning. It was an invitation to reserve and order a Leaf that was being offered to "limited registered customers in launch markets." (I'd registered after learning that I couldn't reserve a Leaf earlier this year.)

Within a few minutes another fully refundable $99 had been added to our VISA balance. It's interesting that even though the Nissan Leaf is more expensive than the Mitsubishi i, the reservation charge is one-third as much.

That's one nice thing about the Leaf. The longer range is another thing. All in all, the Leaf looks like a more appealing electric car than the i -- albeit quite a bit pricier. Next we'll get a quote from a local dealer and hopefully be able to test drive a Leaf.

I really like the idea of an electric car. Not having to worry about the price of gas, the availability of Middle Eastern oil, or how we're contributing to global warming even with our two hybrid vehicles is deeply appealing.

Along with the current Oregon/federal tax credit incentives (I believe these are $7,500 federal and $750 Oregon.) These bring the price of a Leaf or i down to the merely "wildly high" range. We'd almost certainly lease an electric car, of course, given how quickly the technology likely will advance during the next few years.

So, the electric adventure begins. Until we actually drive a Leaf or i we can't be sure that one will meet our rural south Salem driving needs. But there's a good chance that we'll be filling up on Portland General Electric "fuel" before too long.

How we stopped a robin's pecking at window glass

My wife and I have been battling robins at our rural Salem, Oregon home for many years. Almost every spring some crazed robin will obsessively peck at our bedroom windows, which are conveniently (for the bird) located next to a large oak tree.

The robin will sit on a branch, seemingly getting more and more irritated at another robin which has the gall to invade his territory during mating season. Of course, the other robin is his reflection in the glass, which makes it pretty damn difficult to chase the intruder away.

Back in 2003, I wrote about my frustrations with a bird who kept attacking my Volvo's mirrors and windshield. I unaffectionately called him Bastard Robin. Titling the post "Further evidence of male idiocy," at that time I assumed that only guy robins engaged in this sort of behavior.

I'm no expert on bird behavior, but I believe these are the basic facts. Bastard Robin wants to father some offspring. It isn't enough that he screw some sweet young female robin. In his delusional, and seemingly infinitesimal, robin brain, he is determined to be the only male in the whole wide world screwing a sweet young female robin, so all the baby robins everywhere will carry on the genetic heritage of Bastard Robin.

Hence, his singleminded determination to rid the neighborhood of other male robins. Now that makes some sense, I guess. But now the male idiocy kicks in, stimulated by what a character on Ally McBeal was fond of calling the man's "dumb stick."

However, when I went to our local bird store a few days ago to get some advice about how to deal with this year's extra-obsessed robin, the knowledgeable owner told me that female robins also are territorial and engage in compulsive window/glass pecking behavior.

Such is borne out by the best web site advice I could find about how to stop robins from doing this. "Preventing Window Strikes" explains why birds do this and the various options that can be used to deter them.

(Aside from shooting them -- an idea that I have to admit did pass through my mind after the robin started waking us retirees up at 6:30 am, way before our usual rise-and-shine time; but we're kind-hearted vegetarians who believe in a live and let live approach to animals unless they're truly destructive.)

I didn't find that web site until after my wife and I tried several approaches mentioned on it that we thought up on our own. Here's what didn't work for us, and what finally did.

Some years, lowering our bedroom window shades deters territorial robins. This year, it didn't. Robin Version 2011 kept pecking at his reflection whether the shades were up or down. So my wife got a plastic owl at our local Fred Meyer store.

The owl had essentially zero effect on the robin. It didn't take long before I saw the robin pecking right at the owl. So this is when I went to Wild Birds Unlimited for some sparkly, dangling, metallic ribbon stuff.

I climbed on the roof and tacked 20 five-foot lengths about every eight inches to a beam that ran above our bedroom windows. Problem was, the wind would blow the streamers every which way, including up onto the roof and under shingles. The ribbons also would get tangled around each other.

But even when they were hanging down properly, the robin began to ignore them after a brief "what the hell is that?" acclimation period from his perch in the oak tree. Time for another approach.

I dug up some old work clothes and made a scarecrow that, I felt, looked a lot like me. Bungee cords attached the scarecrow to a ladder, raising it to window level. My crowning touch -- which I was sure would do the robin-scaring trick -- was a head shot of a bird's worst nightmare.

But I was dismayed to find that this fearsome open-jawed cat photo didn't do the trick, not even combined with a bunch of the metallic ribbons that I draped on the scarecrow and the window frame. It didn't take long before the robin was darting right past the scarecrow and heading for his reflection again.

Back to the drawing board.

Fortunately, while I was working on the scarecrow my wife was on another shopping trip to Fred Meyer. This time she brought home some various-sized plastic netting for keeping birds off of vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and such. The 14' X 14' package turned out to be just right to cover our bedroom windows.

On a windy, rainy afternoon I climbed back up on the roof and managed to get one side of the netting attached to the eaves above our windows, draping the plastic mesh over nails that I pounded in every foot. Then I secured the other end of the 14' by 14' square to the siding under and around our windows, using more nails.

The netting is hard to see after it was stretched out. Here's what it looked like when still clumped together to some extent.

Looking through our bedroom windows now, the netting is barely visible. This photo was taken when the wind was blowing one of the scarecrow ribbons out to the side (I left the scarecrow up, even though it's robin-scaring value is minimal at best). The netting shows up against the ribbon, but otherwise is almost invisible.

Because the eaves of our house extend out 18 inches or so from the siding, in most places the stretched-out netting is at least several inches from the windows, even though the bottom of it is attached to the side of our house.

The robin has fluttered at the netting several times, but hasn't been able to reach the window. We were worried that it might get caught in the netting. It doesn't look like this will happen, since the bird notices the netting and avoids it. While it was kind of a pain to attach to the eave of our house, the angle this created meant we didn't need to make a frame that would keep the netting away from the windows.

This solution looks like it'll last. Yesterday the robin spent quite a bit of time perched on the oak tree, looking depressed -- like he's lost his purpose in life.

(Suggestion to robin: turn your attention to nesting and chick-feeding; become a sensitive stay-at-home robin dad instead of obsessing over your macho need to chase away male competition. Assuming you're a "he.")

Today I noticed that another robin, apparently the first one's mate, had joined in with some half-hearted window pecking on glass doors on another side of the house. Later I walked by that area and saw that a robin was sitting, dazed, on a stepping stone.

It's eyes were closed, but it was upright. Soon the other robin showed up, making for a poignant moment. The mate hopped around close to the dazed/comatose robin, as if it was trying to get its companion moving.

Must have worked.

The next time I walked by both of the robins were gone. Looking up, I saw one was back in the oak tree, staring at the netting. I was surprised by how happy I was that both were alive. Even though I couldn't stand the window pecking, seeing the dazed robin hurt (probably by bashing its head into glass) got me all sentimental.

These birds are just doing what comes naturally to them. While I imagine that they're out to drive my wife and I crazy with their window pecking, the rational side of me knows this isn't true.

They're just acting like robins. And we're acting like humans. Fortunately, for the moment we've managed to outsmart them, Homo sapiens that we are.

I'm saving money with a Canadian pharmacy

As a U.S. citizen, here's my bottom-line experience with ordering a prescription drug from a Canadian pharmacy: I'm saving hundreds of dollars a year, and the quality of the generic drug seems just as good.

So, what's not to like? Well, only one thing so far.

The drug I'm getting is Dutasteride, the generic version of GlaxoSmithKline's Avodart, a prostate shrinking medication. (Like I said before, a prostate exam is the only time a man doesn’t want to hear from a female who is inspecting his genital area that he's larger than average.)

The Canadian pharmacy I'm using is called -- no big surprise -- Canada Pharmacy. I've been happy with their service, but wasn't aware that the generic Avodart I ordered was coming from India via the United Kingdom.

I sent in my order for 100 Dutasteride capsules on December 30, 2010. Canada Pharmacy told me it was shipped on January 3, 2011. But the package didn't arrive until mid-February.

When I asked what was taking so long, I got an email that said:

Please be aware that mail service in the UK from where your order has shipped has increased their security measures for items sent to the United States in response to restrictions imposed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and this may cause some delays on the shipment of your order. The recent icy weather has also caused some delays. We apologize for your inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Hopefully my next refill won't take so long to arrive.

Even with the time it took for me to get the order, I'm happy that I started using a Canadian pharmacy rather than getting brand Avodart through my Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon individual insurance plan.

Regence's increasingly crappy plan, now called "Evolve Plus," has a $500 deductible for prescription drugs. The full price for 30 Avodart capsules from our independent pharmacy has been $108. After the deductible is met, Regence pays 50%, or $54 -- leaving me to pay the remaining $54.

Given that I also take two much cheaper prescriptions each month, for four months I'd have to pay full price for Avodart until the $500 deductible was met. That's $432 ($108 times four).

For the remaining eight months in a year, I'd pay another $432 ($54 times eight). So getting brand name Avodart through our Regence insurance plan would cost me $864 a year, averaging $72 a month for 30 capsules. That's $2.40 a day.

By contrast, Canada Pharmacy sells 100 capsules of generic Avodart (dutasteride) for $145. That's $1.45 a day. So I'm saving 95 cents a day ($2.40 minus $1.45) on Avodart by getting my prescription filled through Canada Pharmacy.

Which is $347 a year.

All I had to do was get a new prescription from my doctor which said something like "generic OK." After scanning it, I emailed the prescription to Canada Pharmacy along with a scan of my driver's license. Pretty easy way to save $347.

The generic Avodart is made by an Indian company, Cipla. I'm comfortable with taking dustasteride that comes from India. A Business Week story says that Cipla has been one of the most successful Indian companies which specialize in making low-cost versions of American drugs.

And Canada Pharmacy assures its customers that the generics it sells are safe:

Yes, Canadian generics are just as safe and effective. Canada has a government agency that tightly monitors the safety and quality of all drugs sold in Canada.

So if you're unhappy, as I was, with how much prescription drugs cost in the United States, even when insurance pays some of the tab, consider a Canadian pharmacy. It's been a good move for me -- $347 a year worth.

(Previously I'd ordered some other items from Canada Pharmacy and signed up for a plan that gave me free shipping for a year for $20, if I recall correctly. So that's why I didn't include the usual $10 shipping fee in my cost savings.)

"Salemia" video starts shooting in Oregon's capital

Hah! Deal with this, Portland, you snooty we're-so-much-better neighbor city to our north.

You may have super greenness, nightlife, great restaurants, a thriving music scene, and Mt. Hood in your backyard, but as of today Salem -- yes, boring Salem -- has its own cinematic rival of the much-admired (also, reviled) "Portlandia."

Well, more accurately "Salemia" is on its way, filming having started today. (If you're not familiar with the fascinating history of Salemia, all two months of it, I've bloggishly recorded it here, here, here, and here.)

Having landed my dream role in this production, the Crusty Transient character, it was thrilling to get an email from Mike Perron a few days ago asking me if I was available for the initial shoot on Saturday.

I was excited.

My wife, markedly less so, as she'd been viewing this weekend through a finish cleaning up the garage lens. However, I assured her that My Art is totally compatible with My To-Do's -- though I wondered if Brad Pitt has to worry about whether his film career is interfering with home chores.

Today's filming was at the Capitol Mall, all festooned with beautiful flowering cherry trees. Not so beautiful was the weather, which ranged from unseasonably cold, to unseasonably wet and cold, to unseasonable windy, wet, and cold.

Cameraman Mike (on the right), though, was dressed in shorts -- typical attire for hardy Oregonians no matter what temperature it is. Here we see a rehearsal for the "save the cherry blossoms" scene, which I'm not going to further describe because I want to build up prospective audience tension for the Big Premiere.

The kids who were recruited for the scene did a great job, along with actual actress Lindsay and Mike's wife, Patty.

During today's filming the Crusty Transient (me) didn't have much to say. Mostly I wandered around, digging into a trash can, bumping into people, trying to portray the persona of an irritable outsider who looks upon the quirky lameness of Salem with fresh eyes.

In one scene I got to bust into the middle of a reporter's broadcast from the Capitol Mall. The reporter was ably and believably played by newspaper writer K. Williams Brown of the Statesman Journal.

All in all I had a lot of fun with the filming. I'd never done anything like this before, though since I visit Hollywood fairly often to visit my daughter and her family I've picked up some movie-making vibes.

Recently there's been criticism of the incentives Oregon has been giving to the film and TV industry. Some feel that those enticements to shoot here bring minimal economic benefits to our state.

I want to assure these skeptics that based on my vast three-hours of filmmaking experience with "Salemia," cinematic projects like this one are a huge boost to the local economy.

For example: during one of our periodic rain-refuges in Lindsay's van, Mike's wife asked him where the burrito was. After some hemming and hawing, Mike admitted that he'd forgotten to bring a burrito -- which turned out to be a crucial prop for a scene involving the Crusty Transient.

Becoming aware of this, I raised some creative issues that sprang from the depths of my artistic soul. "I'm a vegetarian. And I hate burritos because they have beans. Why can't the burrito be a piece of cheese pizza?"

Patty asked how I could be a vegetarian and not like beans, which is exactly what my wife has said to me countless times -- proving that while the Artist can pursue his craft away from Home, life and art are inextricably intertwined.

After this unhelpful beginning to the burrito vs. pizza debate, my suggestion met a further brick wall when Mike said "It has to be a burrito!" for reasons I never quite figured out, but probably had a lot to do with the fact that he likes burritos.

At any rate, Mike set off to buy a burrito, while I zipped off to the Beanery to get a bagel with cream cheese. My acting blood sugar was dropping and it was clear that the Crusty Transient food prop wasn't going to be anything I actually wanted to eat.

The bagel cost me a couple of bucks, which must also be what Mike spent on the pork burrito. I guess I complained so much about beans, he didn't see any need to get a vegetarian burrito; during the scene I nibbled on the tortilla and carefully left the innards alone.

So businesses in downtown Salem already have gotten an economic boost from "Salemia." As two Goodwill stores also did on Friday, when I did some shopping for my Crusty Transient attire. (Kind of weird, having to spend money to appear destitute.)

I'm looking forward to more filming.

There's a script, professionally rendered by Dave Jenkins, but as with most indie projects of this sort, improvising is a big part of the production. I'm not totally comfortable with speaking spontaneously when a camera is running (who is?).

However, I can tell that, as with most things in life, the more you do it, the more fun it is and the better it goes. Hopefully "Salemia" will help lead our semi-fair city in the same direction: towards more creativity, laughter, and spontaneity.

No lavatory on plane -- pretzels favored over beer

Oh yeah, flying is so much fun nowadays. Last Friday our Horizon flight from Portland to Burbank was delayed an hour while "a maintenance problem" was dealt with.

That's all the explanation we were given by the gate announcer. But given what happened on our return flight, there's reason to suspect that the problem lay behind the door of the all-important tiny compartment at the back of the plane.

Namely, the lavatory.

For several reasons I'm a big fan of airplane lavatories. One, I'm 62. And even though I've reported that my age-related urge to pee has been reduced quite a bit by medication, I enjoy knowing that a toilet is near at hand on a flight.

Two, I'm tall. I like to get up and walk around on the plane after an hour or two of sitting. The lavatory gives me a destination. If someone else is waiting to use it, even better, because then I get to stand longer before returning to my seat.

So I wasn't thrilled when a Horizon gal who manned womaned the microphone at our gate announced that a maintenance guy had been unable to fix the lavatory on the plane that'd take us back to Portland.

Her advice:

"Passengers should use the restrooms at the airport, because there won't be a usable lavatory on the Portland flight."

I was in pretty good shape, kidney-wise, since my prepare-for-the-worst mentality when it comes to airlines usually leads me to shun coffee and large beverages before a flight. But I felt bad for anyone who'd had a 20-ounce triple latte just before they got to the gate, or was suffering from diarrhea.

(Here's a no-lavatory story about such a situation.)

It sort of surprised me that a commercial airliner could embark on a two hour flight without a working lavatory. However, apparently there is no government requirement that passengers have a right to relieve themselves while in the air.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said lavatories, or the lack thereof, are not a concern for regulators.

"That's not an aviation safety issue. It's a passenger or crew-member comfort issue," said agency spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen. "There is absolutely no requirement for any aircraft to have a lavatory."

That includes large passenger planes used for cross-country flights, Bergen said.

As we were preparing for take-off a flight attendant reminded us passengers that no lavatory was available. "You may want to keep this in mind when you make your drink selection," she said.

I did. When the beverage cart came by, I grabbed a bag of pretzel'ish snacks and responded "no thanks" to the drink offers.

So far as I could tell, nobody on the plane had an urgent need to use the non-functional lavatory. Still, it would have been a nice gesture for Horizon to give us some sort of compensation for the inconvenience -- 1,000 frequent flyer miles, for example.

My wife and I forked out $40 at the Horizon counter to check two bags, something that not long ago was done for free. Then we're "treated" to a two hour flight with no lavatory.

Like I said, flying is so much fun. Not.