HinesSight

“But you already have a ... ”

When Laurel walked in the door I figured that I should state the obvious, since the contents of the box that had just arrived from Amazon were scattered on the counter and a new battery obviously was merrily charging away in the new charger.

“I got a new camera.” Then I heard the words that every woman must learn to recite in When You Become a Wife school: “But you already have a _____ .”

Laurel filled in the blank with “camera.” In the past it has been “computer,” “cell phone,” “GPS receiver,” “atomic watch,” and the names of other technological devices whose upgraded versions I so obviously needed to lead a meaningful, happy, fulfilling, and productive life.

To coin a phrase, my wife doesn’t understand me. At least when it comes to buying things with sophisticated electronic components.

Laurel doesn’t understand the importance of having a vast 2.5 inch HyperCrystal LCD screen that doesn’t wash out in bright light, as opposed to a weeny 1.5 inch screen that does. Here it is showing today's rainy afternoon in Central Oregon, as thunderstorms blow across Camp Sherman and our dog hides in the closet.

Now, I never say to Laurel, “But you already have a pair of dichroic glass earrings.” I realize that a woman can never have too many earrings.

Of course, a pair of earrings doesn’t cost $319, the cost of my new Olympus Stylus 500 digital weatherproof 5 megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom lens—which understandably bears a passing resemblance to my previous Olympus Stylus 300 digital weatherproof 3 megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom lens.

But, hey, size matters, and I’m happier with 2.5 screen inches instead of 1.5, plus 5 megapixels of resolution instead of 3. I have to believe that my sensation of camera satisfaction is similar to how Laurel feels when she finds some dichroic glass earrings whose hue exactly melds with the color of an oh-so-difficult-to-match necklace or blouse.

I spent quite a bit of time researching digital cameras on the Internet and couldn’t make much sense out of all the choices. So I ended up returning like a swallow to a familiar place: the Olympus Stylus. I noted on the Olympus web site that the Stylus 500 was a new design and had some features that I’d been longing for on my Stylus 300 (like the aforementioned screen that you can actually see images on, and menu choices that you can actually easily access and read).

I’ve just taken a few photos with the camera.

Here’s an action photo of our half-retriever, Serena, in Spring Lake.

And a still photo of a wildflower blooming on the shores of the lake.

And a macro wildflower photo taken on our own property.

For the moment, my urge to acquire new technology has abated. I rest content, knowing that 410 more photos will fit on my 512 mb XD camera card.

And yet…the recent memory of lustfully gazing upon a friend’s Kyocera cell phone with organizer capabilities lurks in a technology acquisition corner of my male brain. It may not be too long before I once again hear, “But you already have a _______.”

Icon envy?

If you have a weblog or web site, do you have icon envy? When your beloved cyber-creation loads in a web browser, does the address bar just show a bland generic icon next to your URL? Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’d be so much happier if I had an icon of my own?”

Until recently I answered “yes” to each of those questions. Now you likely can see (if you’ve got Firefox) that I’ve got my own HinesSight “H” favicon (favorites icon) proudly displayed. With a few fairly easy steps, you can have your own favicon just like me, CNN, and Google.

If an HTML-ignoramus such as myself can get a favicon up and showing, just about anyone can. The kind folks at Chami.com make it pretty easy. I just added a favicon to my Church of the Churchless weblog and I didn’t even need a triple latte to get me through the process.

Step 1. Come up with a image for an icon. All you need is a graphic of some sort that will be recognizable when it’s teeny-tiny. I took the easy way out and simply used the first letter of each of my weblogs: “H” and “C” Today I made a JPEG file of the Church of the Churchless “C” and saved it on my computer.

Step 2. Then, using the Chami.com tool, I browsed to that image and clicked on the “generate FavIcon.ico” button. Don’t worry if you have no idea what an “.ico” file format is. The tool takes care of that worry for you. If you’re like me, you don’t have a way of saving an image file in that format on your own, so Praise Chami.com.

Step 3. I now had a favicon.ico file that I downloaded to my desktop. I then uploaded that file to the folder on my weblog where files are kept. TypePad conveniently has a button that gives you the path to a file. I jotted down that path: http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/files/favicon.ico

Step 4. All I had to do now was plug a little bit of HTML code somewhere into my weblog. I chose the “Welcome” section, using Method 2 described on the Chami page. The code in between the angly things, < and > (see, I really am an HTML doofus) looked like this: link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/files/favicon.ico"

And then came the big chills-up-the-spine moment (my life isn’t very exciting, so adding a favicon to my weblog is a pretty big deal, right up there with throwing caution to the winds and having two handfuls of Kettle Chips as a midnight snack inside of just one).

I clicked on the Church of the Churchless bookmark. And voila, there my “C” icon was. In Firefox, at least. I haven’t had any luck getting the favicon to show up in Internet Explorer 6, but that doesn’t break my heart. I hardly ever use IE anymore. Plus, my IE browser doesn’t even show a icon for CNN (or any other site, for that matter), piece of junk that it is.

You can validate your favicon work here. Somewhat strangely, I didn’t get a very positive validation. The validator said it couldn't recognize the HTML code and apparently just found the old generic TypePad icon. Yet every time I check, I’m able to fondly gaze upon my personalized “H” and “C” in the address bar (and in the Firefox Bookmarks list).

Go figure. The ways of the Internet are passingly strange, and I’ve spent more than an hour on a sunny late afternoon trying to unravel the strangeness. All for a 16 x 16 bunch of pixels. (Looking upon them makes me happy though, so it’s been worth it).

Bad Dog Police case file: Serena

Date of report: 4-26-05.
Location: South Salem
Alleged violation: excessive digging
Suspect: Serena, a Shepherd/Lab mix, a.k.a. “Wonder Dog”

Dispatcher notes: Received call at 4:15 pm from man identifying himself as suspect’s owner. Said his dog needed to be scared straight. Incoherent babbling about “rooting!, rooting!” made it difficult to determine details of situation. Assigned case level 1 priority; determined address and forwarded to Bad Dog officer in area.

Officer notes: 4:32 p.m., arrived at suspect’s home. Met in driveway by excited owner who kept saying, “She’s over there! Hurry, before she licks off the evidence!” Followed owner around side of house.

Suspect encountered lying down next to hose. Made no attempt to escape. Appeared unnaturally ecstatic. Asked suspect if she was high. Responded, “Just high on life, officer.”

Owner yelled, “Look at her paws! She’s high on digging for field mice!” Told owner to back off, that I’d ask the questions here. Paws did appear dirty. Asked suspect to explain. Replied, “I just had my paws done. Don’t you love the dusky brown highlighting!”

Took sample of substance covering front paws. Visual and tactile inspection strongly suggests dirt. Laboratory results needed to confirm.

Hair loss and probable dirt streaks observed on muzzle. Owner claimed suspect is chronic rooter. Suspect retorted that owner is chronic liar. Growling ensued. Told owner I’d have to book him if he didn’t quiet down. Suspect said, “Just make sure that he feeds me before you take him in.”

Told suspect that she’d be the one in dog jail if she doesn’t change her behavior. Asked her how she’d like to be somebody’s bitch. Said she already was one, so no big deal.

Wrote suspect a citation for rooting and dirty paws. After wagging tail in sarcastic manner, added additional charge of Dog Police insubordination. Told owner to call again if problem recurs. Suspect’s unrepentant attitude not encouraging. Will keep on watch list.

“Return to the One” reviewed in Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Soon after my book about the Greek mystic philosopher Plotinus was published, I sent a copy off to the Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Since I managed to write “Return to the One” without any formal education in the classics or Greek philosophy, I figured it would be cool to even have a chance of being reviewed by an entity that “publishes timely reviews of current scholarly work in the field of classical studies.”

Yesterday I decided to see if a review had been posted. My timing was excellent. A review by Dr. G.S. Bowe of Bilkent University had just appeared. You can read it here.

I’m fairly happy with the review. Applying editing techniques similar to those used in writing movie ads, I’ll be able to make good use of Dr. Bowe’s positive comments: Written in a fresh and accessible style…surprisingly sane, clear-headed, and well-written. Well, maybe I should leave out “surprisingly,” which Bowe apparently threw in because of my “idiosyncrasy of presentation” and “jarring insistence of naming all 43 sub-sections with alliterative subtitles.”

Hey! I should get extra credit for those subtitles (God is the Goal, Love is Limitless, Beauty is Beyond, and so on). You can’t believe how long it took me to find alliterations for every one of those 43 subjects. My dictionary was exceedingly well-thumbed by the time I got to the final “Vision is Veracity” chapter.

I could also quibble with some other critiques in the review. I might send off a response to the Bryn Mawr folks on a few points where I feel Dr. Bowe, well, missed the point. Most notably, he doesn’t appreciate my emphasis on looking upon Plotinus as a mystic who urges us to experience the metaphysical truths described in the Enneads, as opposed to intellectually understanding them.

Right on p. xvii, before the book even starts using regular numbers on the pages, I said: “I do believe that it is possible to know the spiritual truths that Plotinus knew, but only if we inwardly become our true selves, which will be found to be identical with Plotinus’s true self. This obviously separates my approach from most scholars, for they poke and probe Plotinus’s teachings as if they were external objects of knowledge akin to fossils excavated from an ancient riverbed, which is exactly how Plotinus says we should not consider his philosophy.”

So when Dr. Bowe laments that I fail to discuss how Plotinus’s teachings were influenced by Aristotle, Parmenides, and other philosophers, I don’t feel that I failed to be true to the heart of Plotinus’s mystical message. Plotinus doesn’t want us to think our way to wisdom, but to intuit our way to union with the One—the ultimate source of all that is good, true, and beautiful.

All in all, though, I’m pleased that Dr. Bowe took the time to read and review a book by a non-scholar. I entirely agree with him that my approach limits “the text’s usefulness to Plotinus scholarship.” I never intended that “Return to the One” be a scholarly book. It is a book aimed at those who want to really return to the One, not just think about returning.

Dog news flash: Retriever retrieves!

More accurately, this headline should read: “Half-retriever retrieves!” That’s why this story, documented by the photo, is such big news for us.

For we have spent the past four and a half years with Serena, a Shepherd/Lab mix, whose independent German side overshadows her compliant retriever side when it comes to bringing balls and sticks back to Laurel and me (see “What you’re missing if you don’t have a dog” for details of my Buddy Ball travails).

Lately we’d noticed that Serena had become even more retrieving-resistant than usual. Partly this was due to the allure of spring smells, notably the scent of newly active field mice, gophers, and other denizens of the fields that adjoin our dog exercise area. And partly it seemed due to dog laziness.

Whereas previously Serena would “retrieve” (in our experience this word always should appear in quotation marks when used in connection with a dog that has significant German Shepherd breeding) a ball or stick a few times half-heartedly before deciding there were more interesting things to do in her dog life, now she either would run right by the thrown object on her way to greater pleasures, or would collapse in feigned exhaustion as soon as she reached it.

Since Serena still needs to lose weight, and I’m having difficulty stopping myself from sneaking bits of cheese into her evening meal (notwithstanding the vet’s advice and Laurel’s admonishments), bringing her already deficient retrieving skills back up to their usual “D” grade level was important from a health standpoint.

Also, from a “who’s the top dog?” standpoint. A long time ago I accepted my role as Serena’s handmaiden, but Laurel—who knows much more about dog training than I do—correctly recognizes the need to show Serena who is in charge in our three-animal pack (I know that I’m #3; the battle is between Serena and Laurel for the first and second spots).

A mere half-hour of dog training on our lawn proved that, just as in politics, a little bribery goes a long way in getting the behavior that you want. This was the first time that Laurel had combined clicker training with Serena’s favorite jerky treats.

Using Pavlovian conditioning when Serena brought the stick back, (a click followed by a treat, then just a click as a stand-alone "reward") it wasn’t long before our Wonder Dog was dropping the stick right at Laurel’s feet (Admission of Photographic Dishonesty: this shot of a mouth to hand retrieval was staged for dramatic effect, since Serena wouldn’t be this obedient on her own for all the jerky sticks in the world).

I just hope this doesn’t give Laurel ideas for training the other recalcitrant animal in our household. I’m not wild about hearing a clicker every time I forget to close a cupboard door, clean out my toothbrush, or leave food unwrapped. However, I guess it all depends on what sort of a treat I get along with the click.

“Fever Pitch”

I enjoyed seeing “Fever Pitch” last Monday afternoon in an actual movie theatre, where the picture was considerably larger than the DVDs we normally watch on our TV and the sound system was much louder.

Apparently hearing aid manufacturers have an under-the-table agreement with Regal Theatres to ratchet the decibels up to dangerous levels instead of forthrightly buying pre-movie ads, because the four thousand or so previews we were forced to view before “Fever Pitch” started made me wish that I had brought along earplugs—which Laurel had, always-prepared woman that she is.

My visiting sister and brother-in-law were ensconced in a neighboring auditorium, desiring to see the Dirk Pitt thriller “Sahara” instead. When we compared notes afterward, the audiologically-concerned side of me was happy that my eardrums merely had to endure the sound of thousands of screaming Red Sox fans rather than countless thunderous desert explosions.

Movie theatres really should consider that when a patron spends $9 to stick fingers in his or her ears for a couple of hours, watching DVDs at home begins to seem a lot more appealing.

That gripe aside, Laurel also liked “Fever Pitch,” notwithstanding how many of the scenes are baseball-related. That’s because the relationship between Ben (Jimmy Fallon) and Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) is the heart of the movie. After they start going out, Ben’s devotion to the Red Sox initially seems innocent enough to Lindsey. But she only had been exposed to the Winter Guy.

When spring training begins, the full dimension of Ben’s Red Sox obsession becomes clear. The Summer Guy has revealed himself. And therein lies the universal appeal of the movie to couples like Laurel and me. Neither of us is a big fan of any sports team (in fact, I’m a Portland Trail Blazers anti-fan). However, each of us is devoted to activities that the other person looks upon somewhat quizzically with undevoted eyes.

Just as Lindsey couldn’t understand why it was so important for Ben to attend every Red Sox home game, Laurel struggles to empathize with my need to update my weblogs almost every day. Right now I am doing just that as nine o’clock rolls around and dinner is yet uneaten. I would rather write a post than eat. Ben would rather go to a baseball game than to a party with Lindsey. We are brothers in compulsive behavior, though one person’s “obsession” is another person’s “healthy normal activity.”

Most days I watch Laurel walk off down a trail, sprayer and pruning shears in hand, eager to tend to the trees she has planted and kill poison oak. She usually stays out until darkness drives her home. Her devotion to maintaining our ten acres equals my devotion to maintaining my two weblogs. Yet all too often Laurel and I focus more on what our marriage partner is doing instead of the why behind the what.

Sometimes Laurel will say, “You spend so much time in front of your computer.” “Yes, I do,” I’ll reply with a touch of irritation. “About as much time as you spend in front of your trees.” It seems perfectly natural to me to do what I love. The same is true for Laurel. So why can’t we as easily accept the love that each of us has for different things?

In “Fever Pitch” Ben passionately describes to Lindsey why he loves the Red Sox so much and enjoys being an ardent fan. She turns to him and says, “Ben, everything you’ve said about the Red Sox, I feel about you.” It’s a great line, and that single interchange speaks volumes about how men and women pursue hobbies, sports, and other interests within relationships.

By and large, when men are zeroed in on their passion, the relationship is out of mind. One thing at a time, that’s the male mind. When I’m writing, rarely do I think, “Maybe I should be upstairs eating dinner with Laurel.” I’ll finish working on my weblog, then I’ll turn my attention to my woman.

Ben was much worse than me in this regard because his Red Sox obsession was much stronger than my blogging compulsion. Still, I closely followed the twists and turns of his up-and-down relationship with Lindsey, finding quite a bit in common with him, wanting to better understand why Laurel sometimes must feel that I love my computer more than her.

I don’t. Yet after watching “Fever Pitch” it’s clearer to me why she might think this at times—including this moment, which is now 9:21 pm.

Another line I remember from the movie is a young student of Ben's (he's a teacher), wise beyond his years, saying something like, “Ben, I know that you love the Red Sox an awful lot. But consider this: have they ever loved you back?”

Hmmmmm. I’m heading up for dinner, right now. I can’t remember when my weblogs said, “Brian, I love you.” I do remember when Laurel said it.

Lori Ferguson of Concord CA, read this

Are you Lori Ferguson, born June 12, 1990, who lives in Concord, California, and whose parents are Cathy and Steve Ferguson? (Or do you know Lori? If so, pass this message on to her). I’ve got a message for you about your grandparents, whom you haven’t seen since December 1999..

Lori, I’m your great-uncle Brian. Yesterday I took this photo of your grandfather and grandmother—Bob and Carol Ann Gray—in front of the lilacs at our home in Salem, Oregon. They’ve been visiting my wife, Laurel, and me. We’ve talked, as we always do, about how much they would like to see you, to talk with you, to get a letter from you. Any connection with you would be better than nothing.

As I’m sure you know, since 2000 your mother and father have refused to let Bob and Carol Ann have any sort of contact with you and your brother, Bo. To put it bluntly, this is cruel and unusual punishment for grandparents. They love you a lot. This enforced separation has caused them a lot of pain.

You’re old enough to make your own decision about whether you want to see your grandparents again. I hope you’ll choose to contact them. Their phone number in Walnut Creek is 925-939-1474. Their email address is [email protected]. It’s time, long past time, to bring you together with them.

I’ve still got a stack of correspondence from your mother and grandmother about the family rift that led to this hugely unfortunate situation. I tried to serve as a go-between. Obviously I didn’t succeed.

Lori, I have no idea what your parents have told you about why they don’t want you to see your grandparents again. And I’m not going to make any judgments about who is right and who is wrong here. My personal impression is that your mother made a big deal out of a small misunderstanding.

I’ll end with some excerpts from a letter I wrote to your mother on March 20, 2000 (see continuation to this post). Please read them with an open mind. I spoke my own mind quite strongly. I didn’t intend then, nor do I intend now, to disparage your mother’s and father’s religious beliefs, which you might share. I just wanted to have them do some thinking about what it means to be truly spiritual.

Google God, your blessings overwhelm me

As the saying goes, “Be careful of what you wish for, since you may get it.” Previously I have prayed that the great Google God would grace me with a multitude of hits, allowing me to know that my weblog labors are bearing fruit in the garden of the blogosphere.

And now, ever since Google Images indexed some photos that I included in a “The Tao of Paris Hilton” post, my Google cup runneth over. Whereas previously daily visitors to HinesSight typically numbered in the hundreds, now my weblog statistics reveal that it is in the thousands—today, over eight thousand, most of them interested in an image of Paris and Nicole provocatively posing with a pole.

I’m happy to be providing so many people with something they want. Which, clearly, isn’t my profound musings about Greek philosophy or the other posts where I reveal how the mysteries of the universe appear to my HinesSight vision. Google and the other search engines reveal what humanity is actually interested in, not the high-minded and largely hypocritical assertions that we publicly proclaim.

“Man seeking woman for long walks on the beach at sunset.” Yeah, right.

I am not asking for the Google God to withdraw her blessings. Yet I do miss the days when I could peruse my Typepad statistics and see the full range of what led visitors to this weblog. Now I click from page to page on the referral list and observe a endless stream of “images.google.com/imgres,” the link leading to the much-desired Paris Hilton photo.

On the plus side, my sense of being connected to the international community—more precisely, the community of Paris Hilton-obsessed human beings, many of whom are female, judging from weblog comments—soars as I scan the countries the Google image search originated from: Italy, France, Spain, Great Britain, Germany, and many others.

We are one world when it comes to interest in Paris Hilton. Now I must turn my Google prayers to making the world interested more metaphysically in how to “Return to the One.”

Wildfire risk-assessing on a rainy day

I told our dog, “Serena, do you see all those people with clipboards walking around our yard? They’re looking for canine rooters, dogs who root around in tall grass looking for field mice until their noses are brown with dirt and their lips are raw. Could you be one of the dogs they’re looking for?”

Well, it was worth a try. Serena is going to lose all the hair on her muzzle if she doesn’t moderate her Spring obsession with rooting up newly active (and, sadly, probably newly born) rodents. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to be wary of our clipboard-toting guests, appearing much more eager to give them a welcoming pounce than to promise them that she’d change her rooting ways.

Maybe she knew that they were State Farm Insurance agents who were finishing up a two-day training workshop put on by a fire safety consultant. An ex-neighbor who works for the Oregon Department of Forestry, Brian Ballou, suggested that we here in Spring Lake Estates are a good example of people living on the urban/rural interface who face wildfire risks every dry season.

I was happy to volunteer our house for some practice risk-assessing. In a burst of candidness I even blurted out to some of the participants that we have a State Farm homeowner’s policy. Hopefully it isn’t in the process of being cancelled at this very moment.

It was sort of strange to watch all the agents wandering around, pointing here and there at what I had to assume were fire safety strong points and weak points. I didn’t want to make more of a nuisance of myself than I already was with my ripe-for-the-weblog digital camera. Thus I tried to stay out of earshot so the agents could criticize our natural landscaping, which includes an oak tree hanging over a deck, as much as they wanted without hurting the owners’ feelings.

By the end of their visit I was reduced to lurking around inside our house, furtively snapping photos through windows, wondering what was being said at the final workshop conclave next to our carport.

Which took place just a few feet from stacks of firewood and kindling that we keep cozily dry under the carport eaves. This helps explain why, when Jim the workshop organizer rang our doorbell to thank us and say that they were leaving, and I anxiously said, “But first you have to tell us how we did!,” he demurred with a diplomatic, “Well, they thought you were moderately risky.”

Jim singled out the firewood as a problem, along with tall grass that I assured him got mowed in early July. He said that we just had a number of small problems, nothing major, which hopefully doesn’t include the overhanging oak—since we’d be most reluctant to cut it down. On the positive side, Jim said that a tree near a house actually can serve as a heat barrier if a wildfire approaches, just as the tall lilacs on another side of our house could. So vegetation growing near a building has some fire pluses as well as minuses.

State Farm was nice enough to give us a $10 Shell gift card. That will keep our Prius rolling for quite a while. Plus a nifty hardback book with some great photographs, “Firewise Communities: Where we live, how we live.”

The best gift, of course, will be not increasing our homeowner’s premium after we get an official wildfire safety assessment, which I assume is coming. Somehow I envision that moving a wood pile is in my destiny.

Join the Unitarian Jihad

Laurel and I are proud to report that we have committed to the Unitarian Jihad, whose first communiqué has been reported by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jon Carroll. Here’s an excerpt:

We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons.

From the communiqué it appears that all Unitarian Jihadists have special jihad names. This is cool, and a big reason why we were so eager to sign on. Given the evident disorganization of this organization (nobody seems to be in charge, another reason we’re attracted to the movement), I didn’t know how a name would be assigned to me.

Thankfully, a couple of web sites have sprung up that provide an instant Jihadist identification. On my first try I became Brother Rail Gun of Reasoned Discussion. Well, that was actually my second try on the first web site, because I wanted a Brother name and they initially gave me a Sister moniker.

Taking another stab on the other naming web site, I got Brother Peaceful Pointy Implement of Serenity. Oh, much better. I liked it a lot. But, carried away with Jihadist obedience, I dutifully forwarded my name to The Naming Committee, as requested. Damn! My first choice was rejected and I was given Brother Ax of Love.

Well, too bad. I’m sticking with Brother Peaceful Pointy Implement of Serenity. If the Unitarian Jihad Naming Committee has a problem with that they can send out some jihadist goons and try to change my mind with a group hug.

Anxiously analyzing Amazon’s text stats

Just what I didn’t need the first “work” (using that term in a writer’s sense, extremely loosely) day after a relaxing vacation in Maui. In the course of checking on my book’s miniscule sales status, I discovered that the geniuses at Amazon.com have added some new features to their already filled-to-the-gills web site that can make an author anxious:

Readability statistics for books included in their Search Inside the Book program (where authors/publishers send Amazon a book to be scanned, after which every darn word can be searched for and sample pages perused). Plus a concordance of the 100 most frequently used words in a book. And a statistically improbable phrases feature helpfully described by Amazon in a pop-up window:

“Amazon.com's Statistically Improbable Phrases, or ‘SIPs’, show you the interesting, distinctive, or unlikely phrases that occur in the text of books in Search Inside the Book. Our computers scan the text of all books in the Search Inside program. If they find a phrase that occurs a large number of times in a particular book relative to how many times it occurs across all Search Inside books, that phrase is a SIP in that book.”

I was thrilled to see that “Return to the One” garnered five SIPS: mystic philosophy, mystic philosopher, intuitive intelligence, first emanation, inward contemplation. I would have been disappointed if there weren’t any interesting, distinctive, or unlikely phrases in my book.

I also enjoyed looking at the graphically enhanced concordance (elsewhere on the page linked above). Of the 100 most common words in a book, Amazon apparently puts the most common of the common in a larger, bolder font. So I could quickly see that my book talked a lot about soul, Plotinus, spirit, and spiritual—which is absolutely true.

It wasn’t quite as much fun to anxiously analyze the readability statistics. At first I fantasized that my score of 14.6 on the Fog Index sounded admirably low. But then I saw that 7-8 is considered ideal, and anything over 12 means the book is difficult to read. OK, I’ll admit to “Return to the One” being more or less guilty as charged.

Yet let’s see the developer of the Fog Index write a really easy to read book about one of the densest and most profound philosophers of all time. (Oops, make that “mystic philosopher”—might as well use my special Statistically Improbable Phrases as much as I can.) So I decided to check out some of the related competition, a few of the Books on Related Topics that Amazon lists on my book’s page.

Yeah, baby. Let’s go head to head with Pierre Hadot’s “Plotinus or the simplicity of vision,” which is one of the most popular (in the sense of both best-selling and easy to read) books about this Greek philosopher.

Fog Index: Hines scores 14.6 and Hadot 17.5. Yay, a point for Hines!

Flesch Index (90-100 appropriate for 5th-6th graders, 0-30 means you need a college degree to understand the book): Hines scores 51.5 and Hadot 44.0. Boo, a point for Hadot.

We’ve got a tie, one point each. It all comes down to the Flesch-Kincaid Index, a refinement of the Flesch Index that relates the score to a U.S. grade level. You would think that Hadot would win out again here, but no…

Flesch-Kincaid Index: Hines scores 11.5 and Hadot 14.2. Yay, another point for Hines! He wins 2-1! If you just made it halfway through your senior year in high school, you can still enjoy “Return to the One”—no need to plow onward into the junior year of college just to be able to understand Hadot’s book.

Plus, take a look at Amazon’s Fun Stats: with my book you get a whopping 10,324 words per dollar; with Hadot’s book you just get a measly 2,755. Where can you get 10,324 of anything for just a buck? And here you get 10,324 words of profound mystic philosophy for your $1 (to work in another SIP; by the way, Hadot only managed to come up with two SIPS, “total presence” and “our true self”; you get five in my book.

Sure, you could get your philosophy from the “Tao of Pooh” and only need a 6th grade education to understand it. But come on: the concordance shows that you’re going to read “Pooh said” over and over and over. For about $4 more you can get almost 100,000 additional words in “Return to the One” and learn about a mystic philosopher who wrote that the nature of God, the One, can’t begin to be expressed in language.

To get at the root of that paradox you’re going to have to buy the book.

Lows and highs of being home again

Coming home to 55 degree Oregon after twelve days in 78 degree Maui is a shock. Waking up moderately jet-lagged this morning revealed the lows and highs of returning from vacation.

Low. The refrigerator is disturbingly empty.

Low. The grass is scarily high.

Low. The mower that cuts the grass chose this day to break a belt.

Low. The suitcase filled with recently-bought shirts that are a mass of wrinkles owing to my poor folding skills (see post below). An ironing board is in my destiny.

High! Serena survived the kennel, where she was appropriately given a Hawaiian-themed bandana to wear home (forgive the flash-induced blue eyes, which obscure her beautiful browns).

In celebration of Serena’s return, and my fixing of the mower belt after it took about 10 times longer than it should have, due to my possessing 10% of normal male mechanical skills, I threw caution to the winds and invited her to take an afternoon nap with me on her dog-room futon.

Not a good idea. I don’t understand how people—and there are a lot of them, from what I hear—can sleep at night with their dog, or dogs, in their bed. From a distance, Serena seems to sleep quietly. Close up, with her head nestled against my chest, she wheezes and snores like crazy.

Makes sense, since her nose is so long. But not human nap-friendly. I was happy when she jumped up after hearing Laurel turn on an outdoor faucet. Let sleeping dogs lie unless they are snoring in your face, that’s my new motto,.

For those of you, and there can’t be many, who have been worrying about whether our filled-to-the-brim-with-new-clothes checked luggage made it past the Hawaiian Airlines 50 pound weight limit, I am pleased to report that Yes, It Did, thanks to a non-compulsive agent who, for a few minutes, became our very best friend.

When Laurel heaved her suitcase on the scale it read “53 pounds.” Oops. Mine read “48.” A logical conundrum, if we both were going to avoid the $25 overweight charge. But the Hawaiian Airlines guy told us that he figures that 52 pounds is a reasonable limit. So a quick shift of a pound of clothes from Laurel’s bag to mine did the trick.

I told the agent that humidity could easily add a couple of pounds to the weight of slightly damp clothes, and that some scientists believe the constants of nature, such as gravity, actually may have varied over time rather than remaining, well, constant. We were headed for a great conversation, but he needed to check in other passengers.

We came away feeling good about Hawaiian Airlines, so if some executive of the airline Googles his company and finds this post, please encourage all of your check-in agents to be equally hang-loose about a few pounds. It is good business, especially since Hawaiian is in bankruptcy and needs all the passengers it can get.

Anyway, as the agent noted, apparently there used to be a total weight limit, rather than a per bag limit. Since my boogie board weights just a few pounds, yet gets counted as one of my two allowable checked items, shouldn’t we be able to get some leeway on a barely-over-50 pounds suitcase, given that I could have checked 100 pounds worth of stuff?

Another compliment for Hawaiian Airlines: their current vegetarian meals are the best I can remember eating in coach. We were told that after April 1 you can’t order “special meals” (to save money, undoubtedly), but that doesn’t matter so long as Hawaiian keeps having the tasty veggie pasta dishes we enjoyed coming and going.

Our United Airlines Mileage Plus VISA card is gathering dust. Hawaiian Airlines is the way to go from Portland, to Hawaii at least. Direct flights to Maui and good meals to boot. Plus an Aloha spirit that lets your bag be a few pounds overweight.

Mahalo, Hawaiian. May you get out of bankruptcy and stay in business.

Final report from Maui

I’m almost packed for the flight home tomorrow. I have gone from clothing-deprived (see April 1 “How to get a man shopping” post) to Hawaiian Airlines bag overweight-likely. Laurel too. We’ve acquired a small, in retrospect, too small, extra bag to check into which we’ve crammed the heaviest items that otherwise would go in our suitcases.

The last time we flew home from Maui we not so brilliantly managed to pay overweight charges on both our suitcases, our excessively mellow minds not being able to fathom that if we simply took a few heavy things out of one suitcase and replaced them with a few light things from the other suitcase, we’d only have to pay a single $25 charge rather than two. Hopefully our planning is better this time.

I never expected to have to worry about taking too many clothes home when we left Salem. But my plan to spice up my shopping enthusiasm by purposely bringing just a few shirts, t-shirts, and shorts worked too well. This vacation has turned me into a semi-pro shopper, reserving the full “pro” designation for Laurel, naturally.

This afternoon I even found myself heading off down the road to Kahana on my own, eager to check out a few batik shirts that Laurel had espied earlier and thought I might like. Amazingly, she wanted to stay in our room, feed the birds, and watch the waves. I couldn’t believe that my shopping enthusiasm finally had out-stripped hers. Scary.

Even scarier, because the feeling was so unfamiliar, was how my mood changed soon after I entered Leslie’s Family Funwear. I felt energized, powerful, in charge of my life, joyful. In short, I had become a shopaholic. Temporarily, hopefully. Laurel often has described her own similar shopping feelings, but I never thought that my own endorphins ever would be stimulated into action by walking into a Leslie’s Family Funwear.

I still have some shopping skills to develop, though. T-shirt browsing is my weakest event, mostly due to my excessively compassionate Buddha-nature. I was having a great time looking for just one more extra-large Hawaiian-themed shirt to cram into my suitcase, unfolding with zeal the carefully folded shirts on display, doing my best to refold the rejects into a semblance of their previous pristinely neat appearance.

My best clearly wasn’t good enough, for after five or six T-shirt unfoldings and semi-refoldings I felt the eyes of the matronly Filipina proprietor looking critically upon my un-handiwork from the checkstand near the door. Indeed, I could tell myself that the extra-large row of T-shirts now appeared decidedly more in disarray.

She started to walk slowly in my direction. Shopping guilt overcame me. A shopping pro would have been able to control his emotions. Of course, a shopping pro would have known how to re-fold T-shirts back into their original shape. I wasn’t wildly attracted to any of the shirts I had looked at, but I grabbed one and walked briskly to the checkout counter with my other two batik shirts.

As I paid for my purchases I could see out of the corner of my eye the woman slowly, patiently, resignedly, refolding the T-shirts I had mangled. I felt deep compassion for her. I also thought to myself, “you’re a shopping wimp.” I need to get tougher if I aspire to making it to the pro shopping circuit. Also, I need folding lessons.

Some final photos:

Here’s Laurel outside the pacific’O restaurant where we enjoyed a “tower of tofu” meal last night. She looks matchingly wonderful, as usual.

And here’s our final Napili sunset. Rather cloudy, which has been the theme most of the past ten days here. But beautiful even with the trade wind induced showers.

Aloha.

More photos from Maui

Reporting from the shores of Napili Bay, I am pleased to announce that Laurel was whistled at during her morning walk around Kapalua and the Ritz Carlton. She humbly told me that she was whistled at from behind, but I assured her that, even at the age of 56, her front is well worth being whistled at also.

Here’s Laurel at dusk in front of the amazing waterfall at the Grand Wailea Hotel which, admittedly, would look a lot more amazing if the camera flash had reached it. We went to Kihei and Wailea yesterday and enjoyed walking around the grounds of the Grand Wailea, whose swimming pool is one of the wonders of the lodging world.

Tonight we return to our usual evening destination, Lahaina. There always are crowds waiting to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise, which features a vegi-burger. We’ll past it up though for our absolute favorite meal in Maui, the aptly named “The Vegetarian Dish” at the pacific’O restaurant in Lahaina: “Roast marinated steak of tofu with a crown of sautéed quinoa, red lentils, Maui onions and shitake mushrooms. Topped with mixed sprout salad and carrot ginger sauce.” Don’t pass it up, vegetarian Maui vacationers.

A few days ago we got to watch two simultaneous weddings at sunset on the left side of Napili Beach. The closer couple got a great deal from the man who married them. After conducting the ceremony he picked up a ukulele and sang a song while the newlyweds danced barefoot in the sand. Sweet. And simple. It was just the two of them, no guests.

I love to go out by the Napili Shores pool and watch the sunset along with fellow guests. The large waves breaking over the reef just offshore provide continuous entertainment while we wait for the main sunset attraction.

Today the waves and high tide were so large there was barely any dry sand on Napili Beach. I took this photo of Laurel on an earlier calmer day. Fortunately I parked my beach pack on a rock this morning while I enjoyed boogie boarding the high waves for almost two hours. Later, I optimistically thought that I could lie on my mat and my friends, the waves, wouldn’t touch me. When I had to run to save my board and fins from being washed out to sea, and wash off the sand that a giganto wave had just deposited on me and my mat, I thought otherwise.

Laurel usually obeys rules.

Maui brings out the rebel in her (but she doesn’t hang towels over the railing). The red-headed birds have her perfectly trained. All they have to do is chirp on the deck and Laurel races out to feed them. She misses her daily feeding of birds back in Salem, and also our dog, Serena, so I think these “pets” fulfill a couple of away-from-home longings.

Boogie boarding do’s and don’ts

For a haole (non-Hawaiian/Caucasian) visiting Maui, my boogie boarding style is not bad—particularly for a 56 year-old Oregon guy. So, before I wipe out and crush my skull on a reef rock, I want to share some of the boogie boarding wisdom I’ve accumulated over several decades of warm-water vacationing.

First and most important: look good before you set out for the beach. Who knows, the surf may be down and you’ll spend the whole day sitting on your beach mat. You want to look like a boogie boarder even if you’re not boogieing.

Here I’m modeling, from top to bottom, a Pacific Whale Foundation cap (to demonstrate my eco-ocean sensibilities), rimless Maui Jim sunglasses (spendy but tropical trendy), a Xcel nylon/spandex shirt (protects against the sun and boogie board burn), and Tommy Bahama swimming trunks (picked out for me yesterday by Laurel, my personal shopper extraordinaire).

Most of these are, of course, entirely personal fashion statement preferences. However, I heartily recommend a similar shirt for serious boogie boarders. If you’re wave playing for several hours, as I was today, the effectiveness of the sunscreen you put on will be sorely diminished, and sore likely will be just how your red back and shoulders will feel the next day.

Plus, paddling around on a boogie board and bouncing along on waves while you’re lying flat on your stomach can cause boogie board rash. I get this right under my rib cage if I’m not wearing a shirt. So seriously consider wearing a top of some sort (a T-shirt will do fine, but is clammier than a nylon/spandex shirt).

Second: use fins (and a boogie board, of course). If you’re really adept at reading waves, knowing exactly where you have to be to catch one, you might be able to successfully boogie board without fins. But most people, which definitely includes me, find it much easier to maneuver around with fins.

I use snorkeling fins with ankle fasteners. If you don’t attach snorkeling fins to your ankles, almost certainly they’re going to come off in heavy surf. It isn’t fun to search for a fin while waves are breaking over you and you’re yelling, “Has anyone seen my fin?” It’s well worth it to spend a few bucks on ankle fasteners for the fin peace of mind. Or, you can get official boogie boarding fins that strap tightly to your foot, but this is impractical for most tourists.

So, once you’re well dressed and properly equipped, you’re ready to boogie. I’m assuming that you want to go out to where the waves are breaking well off the beach. You can play with your boogie board, though, right on or close to the beach—as are these folks I took photos of today.

However, real boogie boarding takes place a ways offshore where the waves first break. Sit on the beach and watch the boarders who are already out there if you haven’t boogied a location before. If you’re wondering why nobody is catching some wonderful looking waves, there usually is a good reason. Like rocks. Sharp rocks. Reef rocks. Nasty rocks.

Water is the best thing about boogie boarding. Rocks are the worst thing. I know where most of the rocks are in Napili Bay. I’m always thinking about how to avoid them. Wind and waves have a sneaky way of moving you from a safe boarding spot to right in front of a reef. If you catch a wave, you might well go right over the rocks. Or, you might not. When I’m in doubt about whether I’m going to catch a rock after catching a wave, I let the wave go.

Different strokes for different boarders though. Some boogie boarders are major risk takers. Some like to play it absolutely safe. Do what feels right to you. This photo shows the usual boogie boarding order of things: a line up of boarders ranging from closer in to farther out from shore (note them avoiding the rocks on the left). Generally, you’ll get more waves if you’re a bit closer in, because there are more smaller waves than larger waves, and larger waves break further out.

Larger waves usually are more fun. They’re also scarier, if you’re new to boogie boarding. In my opinion, the main thing to remember about waves is that water rarely hurts you. It’s rocks that hurt you. So if you’re thrashed around by a wave like clothes in the spin cycle of a washing machine, no big deal. You’ll pop up just fine, no worse for wear. It’s being thrashed around underwater when rocks are also underwater that hurts like hell. Again, stay away from rocks.

Try to catch a wave just as it’s breaking. Follow the line of white foam. Become the foam. Merge with the breaking wave.

If a large wave has already broken and you’re in front of it, you have two choices: go with it or go under it. Going under it is an essential boogie boarding skill. Just dip your head, press down on the front of the board, shut your eyes (if you wear soft contacts, like me), and kick with your fins. After the wave goes by you’ll pop up about where you were instead of halfway to the beach, which likely would have happened if you went with the wave.

That isn’t good if your goal is to get out to where the waves are breaking. Getting back out after catching a wave is what I like least about boogie boarding. They should have a rope tow or something, especially for geezers over fifty. Tip: don’t ride a wave all the way in if you don’t feel like paddling all the way back out. Tilt your board sideways and jump out of the breaking wave after you’ve had enough fun with it. That shortens the paddle back.

Often it’s best to paddle back in a half circle. In the surf a straight line usually isn’t the shortest distance, timewise, back out to where the waves are breaking. Head off to the left or right from where you ended up and the waves probably won’t be breaking right over you all the way back out.

People use various approaches to boogie board paddling. Easiest is the “hold on with both hands to the front of the board and kick with your fins” option. But this is tiring on the legs. Others use the “paddle with both hands, either both at once or alternately” option. That works fine if the ocean is calm. I’ve evolved a “paddle with one hand while hanging on with the other hand, plus kick” approach. I keep falling off the board when I paddle with both hands, so this is a workable hands/feet combination for the less dexterous.

Etiquette wise, try not to run into other people. Sometimes it can’t be helped, however. Today I rode a wave in most of the way on the back of another guy. Once I landed on top of him, I couldn’t get off. He didn’t seem to mind, thankfully. The very next wave I caught, two girls ended up on my back. Instant boogie board karma, I figured.

When you run over someone it’s good form to wave back at them with a breezy “sorry but I couldn’t help it hope you’re OK" gesture. If they don’t respond, you might check to be sure that you haven’t knocked them unconscious. Fortunately, boogie boards are a lot softer than surfboards.

Rather paradoxically, locals get preference in staking out the “sweet spot” where the best waves are breaking. Yes, they get to boogie board all the time and we tourists don’t. But the native Hawaiians have been roundly screwed by the Americans who took their land, so I don’t mind taking back seat to a local when it comes to catching a wave. Plus, you can learn a lot by shadowing the local boogie boarding guys and gals. They usually have a much better sense for the ocean that we haoles do, so I try to follow their lead.

Most of the time. On Kauai once I learned that if a couple of local guys start yelling at each other, “Here comes a big one,” it’s time for the haoles to swim for shore. If the locals seem just mildly enthused about a wave, then I figure I can handle it. But if they’re wildly excited about some monster that is approaching, I’ll probably be terrified.

Of course, that was quite a few years ago, and I’ve become a better boogie boarder now. About all I fear now is sunburn. Wear a shirt and put on lots of SPF 30 sunscreen. Then go out and boogie.

How to get a man shopping

Ladies, I’m sure you’ve asked yourself, “How can I get my man to love shopping as much as I do?” Admit it: you enjoy being with him, but it’s a drag when you’re just getting warmed up after hitting a dozen stores and he’s starting to whine, “Honey, can we go home now, I’m all shopped out.”

I have an answer for you. At least, an answer for when the two of you go on vacation. After he has finished packing his suitcase, open it up and take most of his clothes out. That way, when you arrive at your destination he’ll be motivated to go shopping with you since he won’t have much to wear otherwise.

I can testify that this approach works. However, I did this to myself on our trip to Maui—taking just a few T-shirts, a few Hawaiian shirts, and a few pairs of shorts for a twelve-day vacation. Usually I pack a lot more, but I decided to test out a hypothesis this time: Would shopping with Laurel be more enjoyable if I really needed to buy clothes?

My experimental answer: Yes. Here I am this afternoon on the ocean side of Front Street in Lahaina, wearing a fresh-off-the-rack Hilo Hattie shirt and clutching several recently purchased T-shirts. Usually Laurel shops me until I beg for mercy (also for food and a place to sit). However, I’ve been keeping up with her much better this trip, which I ascribe to my significantly increased motivation to find clothes to wear.

Understand, I’m still a shopping amateur. Laurel is the pro. On our first full day in Maui she had gone to three stores before I had finished eating breakfast. Being a woman, Laurel is energized by shopping. Being a man, I usually am drained by shopping. As noted above, I can’t count the number of times I’ve said “Well, I guess we’ve done enough browsing for one day,” and Laurel has replied, “Are you kidding? I’m just getting going.”

So that’s why a woman needs to give her man some extra motivation by making sure that he only has a few clothes to wear on vacation. It also helps if the clothes don’t match, another extra motivating factor that, in our case, I added by accident. Usually I make at least a cursory effort to see whether the T-shirts I bring to Maui have at least a vague matching relationship with the shorts I bring. That didn’t happen this time.

When I unpacked, I found that, defying the odds of probability, I had managed to pack three T-shirts and three pairs of shorts, each of which was a different color, yet somehow each combination of “top” and “bottom” was remarkably incompatible. Laurel, of course, always matches perfectly, which is why it takes her four times as long to pack.

However, when she gets where she is going, she actually has clothes that she can wear in public that don’t make little children scream, “Mommy, why does that man look so weird? He doesn’t match!” (I may be slightly exaggerating here, but I can easily believe that Laurel was such a child).

I am in good shape now, though. Six new T-shirts, a pair of shorts, three Hawaiian shirts, one water-resistant jacket (I forgot that it can rain a lot in Hawaii), and two baseball caps now reside in our condo closet.

The shopping gods have been kind to me. I knew it was going to be a good shopping day when a rainbow appeared over Lahaina and the West Maui mountains as we were setting out late this afternoon. The “L” on the hillside stands for Laurel, of course, a token of appreciation from the Front Street merchants (or so I like to think).