HinesSight

My southern California daughter found downtown Salem cool

Last week my granddaughter, Evelyn, and daughter, Celeste, spent three days with us, having come up from their home in Laguna Niguel in Orange County so Evelyn could go on a tour of the University of Oregon. She'll be a junior at Mater Dei High School next year and is considering the U of O for college.

Here's Evelyn, Celeste, and me on the Minto-Island bridge at Riverfront Park, photo courtesy of my wife, Laurel.

Celeste lived in Salem from 1977 to 1990, when she graduated from South Salem High and headed off to the University of Arizona -- fulfilling her nefarious goal of having me pay out-of-state tuition for four years after she was born and raised in Oregon (albeit at a much lower rate than college costs these days). 

We stopped by the house on Hillview Drive that my first wife and I bought when I started working for the State Health Planning and Development Agency. It looked much the same. Celeste wanted to show Evelyn the steep hill she walked up after the school day was finished at Salem Heights Elementary School.

One afternoon we headed to downtown Salem. Celeste had spent a lot of time there during her high school years, calling herself a "mall rat." Naturally she'd seen downtown on previous visits to Salem, but it had been a few years since she'd been there.

I was curious how someone from southern California, who travels a lot both in this country and internationally in the course of her work as the Sales Manager for Silhouette, a designer eyewear company, would look upon downtown Salem.

Well, Celeste was impressed. (Patrick, her husband, couldn't make the trip, having just started a new job as manager of a Baccarat store; if you're looking for a $800 caviar bowl, look no further.)

We started off with lunch at the downtown Venti's. I had one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches in my life. All four of us enjoyed our meal. Then we walked across the street to the Reed Opera House. Celeste remembered it well from her high school days.

Evelyn and Celeste loved the Dark Wash Vintage Co. In the photos above Celeste is wearing a Saturday Night Live t-shirt she found there. The Awkward Peach Boutique also was a hit with them. 

Heading down Liberty, we stopped at Sewell Sweets for dessert. At the end of the block, The Freckled Bee drew us in. Since all four of us are progressives, we liked the sentiments in the store windows. Like:

It was great to see downtown Salem through the eyes of my daughter and granddaughter. I tend to take downtown for granted, since I'm there so often attending my thrice-weekly Tai Chi classes at Pacific Martial Arts on Court Street.

Celeste and Evelyn helped me better understand what downtown has to offer, partly because they drew me into shops that I haven't gone into on my own.

Oleg Foksha clued me in to what it's like to be a Salem builder

As I said in a post a few days ago about the 2023 Tour of Homes for the Salem area, I had an enjoyable conversation with Oleg Foksha when my wife and I visited a beautiful Foksha Homes house in southeast Salem.

Before too much time passes, I wanted to share what I remember from that conversation. Foksha is the president of the Home Builders Association of Marion & Polk Counties and an experienced builder himself obviously.

My wife and I started talking with Foksha when we asked some questions about the Tour of Homes house, and mentioned how we appreciated the large trees on the property. I then said that it irked me when builders in Salem cut down most, or all, of the existing trees in the course of developing a property.

That led Foksha to explain to me the hurdles builders face these days. I can't remember everything he said, but here's a few highlights.

His main point was that it's tough for a builder devoted to quality to make a decent profit. Foksha decried large national or regional firms who build "cookie cutter" houses in the Salem area. He said that Foksha Homes is small and family-owned.

I was told that Foksha Homes needs to price a house at about $700,000, I think it was, in order to make a profit of $65,000. Out of that he has to pay his employees and the owners of Foksha Homes a decent wage.

There are so many rules and regulations that have to be complied with by a builder, Foksha said. He noted that in older parts of town with fairly large lots and back yards, there's now an ability to build several story apartments or condos -- which can irk the people living in a neighborhood who thought its character would remain the same after they bought a house there.

Anyway, I came away from our conversation with a better appreciation of what it is like to be a builder in Salem. Because the Home Builders Association leans decidedly conservative in its political stance, and I'm a progressive, I've tended to look at builders through that lens.

But being able to hear Foksha describe his life as a builder opened my eyes to the difficulties he and his fellow builders face. And that's a good thing, given how many divisions there already are in our country between people who judge each other without really understanding what it's like to be the other person.

Photos of the million dollar houses in 2023 Tour of Homes

Last Saturday my wife, Laurel, and I toured the most expensive houses in the 2023 Salem-area Tour of Homes. Naturally we figured they'd be the most interesting, since money talks when it comes to home design.

Our first stop was the $1,586,016 (nice precise cost) house on two acres near Jefferson offered by Bergby Construction. It's a 3,947 sq. ft. one-level.

The living room had a clean modern look.

As did the kitchen.

Out back a very large water feature was partially filled. Laurel believes this area is groundwater limited, which made us wonder how neighbors on other small acreages were going to like having this home's well used to fill the pond and keep it full during dry months.

We'd love to have a covered outdoor seating area like this, but our 1973 house was built way before such was fashionable. 

The walk-in shower actually was a walk-through shower.

Past the walk-through shower were not one but two large walk-in closets. We were envious, since our closets are only suitable for being walked into by very small animals.

In the utility room there was a washer, dryer, and something else. It seemed to be some sort of device for dewrinkling clothes, maybe? Never seen anything like it before.

A great feature of the house was a separate living area the size of many stand-alone houses. Living room, kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms.

In this area a walk-through shower leads to a toilet.

Then we visited a $1,650,000 house with 2,513 sq. ft. on Coates Crest Way offered by Foksha Homes. We liked this home more than the Jefferson house, largely because of the more attractive setting.

This countertop in the living room was striking. Really unusual. It looked like it was shining with light.

Which it was, being backlit with LED lights.

I also liked the look of this unusual bowl.


A retaining wall looked much better with blocks that appeared more rock-like.

Here's a wide view of the back-lit counter and dining area.

You can either watch TV or flickering flames. Or both.

An outdoor seating area has a nice view.

A walk-in closet was attractively designed.

The master bedroom has large windows well placed to reveal the beautiful surroundings.

I talked with Oleg Foksha, the builder, for quite a while. I'll share what I remember of our conversation in another blog post. Foksha shared what it is like to be building houses in Salem these days, given all of the land use rules he has to comply with. I enjoyed our conversation.

Salem Art Fair 2023 improved from last year, but still lacking old fair energy

Friday my wife, Laurel, and I went to the Salem Art Fair in Bush Park. Last year I wrote about the drawbacks of the new location mostly away from the large shady oak trees, which was necessary because of damage being caused to the trees.

On the positive side, some of the problems I noted in "Salem Art Fair better for trees in new location, but not as pleasant now" have been addressed, at least partially. But I also still agree with a follow-up post I wrote, "Salem Art Fair should move to Riverfront Park." 

Here's some photos I took at this year's Art Fair. I'll use my comments on them to talk about what's been improved from last year, and what's stayed the same.

As we entered Bush Park after paying at a gate, once again I was struck by the lack of intimacy that marked the Art Fair under the sheltering oak trees. Being met by a very large open area exposed to the sun (temperature was in the mid-to-high 80's on Friday) didn't fill me with enthusiasm for the event.

The children's area to the south of the large open area looked more appealing, with the backdrop of large trees. We skipped that area, heading to the first artist booths at that end of the fair. For a while I felt enthused about being at the fair, enjoying the booths and lingering at some.

It was nice to see a woman with a good voice playing her guitar at a shady location. The Art Fair needs more of this: solo entertainers sprinkled throughout the fair. We dawdled here for a bit, since shade is rare at the new Art Fair location. I'm quite heat tolerant. My wife, less so. But as we walked around in the hot afternoon sun, our desire to dawdle dwindled.

I'd drunk 16 ounces of water just before going to the fair. But I was drawn to head toward the main food/drink area at the north end of the fair after viewing just a small number of booths, because the sun and heat was getting to me. And like I said, I tolerate heat better than Laurel does.

The new main stage at the back left of this photo didn't attract nearly as many people as the old main stage did. The reason, pretty clearly, is that the area near the old stage was largely shaded and the new area is in the direct sun. Some people were sitting under awnings listening to a performer, but there wasn't room for very many.

After we speed-walked our way through the artist booths because of the sun and heat, finding the new layout easier to navigate (last year's layout made it difficult to determine whether some booths had been missed), Laurel sat down in the shade while I explored the part of the fair nearest to where the old fair used to be located. This additional children's area was pleasant, being under trees.

I felt a pang of regret for the loss of the old location when I saw a barrier fence along what used to be the main corridor of the Art Fair, filled with visitors and brimming with energy. Now it was mostly empty. (Note the angry owl warning sign on the right; that brings back memories.)

There were a few booths along the main paved trail. I figured that maybe these didn't need a vehicle to transport the art so they could be near the oak trees. Regardless, I enjoyed this taste of the old fair location.

And there were some food/drink trucks along the path. Again, this made me feel good because it reminded me of the old art fair vibe.

I found Laurel near a stage where dancers were performing. In the shade, of course. 

Leaving the Art Far, this woman asked us if we wanted to sign the petition requesting a referendum on the employee payroll tax recently passed by the Salem City Council without a vote of the people. I had to tell her that we live outside of the city limits so couldn't sign the petition. I definitely support the referendum, though, I said.

Stoic guide to happiness: want the things you already have

If you want to be happy -- and who doesn't? -- there are a huge number of ways people have advised how to accomplish this throughout the thousands of years of recorded history. 

Whatever works for you, go for it. That's my attitude. I simply want to suggest an approach that resonates with me, the Stoic practice of negative visualization. 

Or as William B. Irvine says in the transcript of a talk that I've shared below, want the things you already have, love the life you happen to be living.

Yeah, I realize this sounds kind of obvious.

But as Irvine points out in his talk, that isn't how most of us look upon happiness, since much of the time we expect that if something new and better comes into our life, then we'll be happier. 

This morning I saw the Negative Visualization talk featured on my iPhone's Waking Up app, where I listen to guided meditations and interesting talks about spirituality, neuroscience, and such. I'd already heard the talk when I listened to Irvine's 23-session long series on "The Stoic Path."

This time, though, his remarks about how we go wrong in seeking happiness appealed more strongly to me. So much so, I spent about an hour this afternoon making a transcript of the 11 1/2 minute talk. 

Irvine is a clear thinker and good writer/speaker. Enjoy. 

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Negative Visualization

A transcript of a talk by William B. Irvine
From “The Stoic Path” on the Waking Up app

What is it that you want in life? One common answer is that people want to be happy. But this raises a follow-up question. What’s your strategy for becoming happy?

A common answer is that you become happy by getting the things in life that you want. And this might include a new car, a bigger house, a perfect partner.

Although this recipe for attaining happiness is quite popular, it is defective, and that’s because it ignores the psychological phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation. 

So here’s the situation. You want something. You work to get it. You finally do get it. For a while, you’re happy. But then, the problem is, you get used to the thing you have and you’re no longer happy.

You don’t live happier ever after the way you thought you would. 

You end up with pretty much the same position you were at before you went to all that trouble. And you find yourself wanting new new things, from the belief that if you only had them, you really would be happy forever after.

At this point a comment is in order. If you’re currently unhappy, this is proof that never in your life have you succeeded in doing something that would let you live happily forever after. 

And yet the dream persists. It’s high time that you considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, your strategy for pursuing happiness is flawed.

It turns out that the get happy by getting what you want strategy provides you with a recipe not for having a good life, but for having a life filled with dissatisfaction. 

By adopting this strategy, you unwittingly place yourself on a hedonic treadmill on which happiness is like a mirage in the desert. A thirsty person might walk for a mile to get the water that he sees with his own eyes off in the distance in the desert, only to have it vanish as he arrives at his destination.

He ends up as thirsty as he was before. Actually he might be even more thirsty as a result of taking a long and pointless walk under the desert sun. What foolishness. 

The get happy by getting what you want strategy is based on what I call the gap theory of happiness. You’re unhappy because you’re aware of a gap between what you have and what you want. 

Under these circumstances, the strategy for attaining happiness is obvious. You just get what you want. And that closes the gap, eliminating the source of your unhappiness. Easy as can be.

Because this strategy is so obvious, it’s been employed throughout history and around the globe. There’s a good chance you’re among those who use it. I know I have used it in my life. Since becoming a Stoic I use it much less than I formerly did, but it still lures me.

The problem is that we humans are dynamos of desire. If you’re normal, you have a profound capacity for wanting things, but getting what you want doesn’t stop the dynamo. At best it slows it down for a few days.

But then powers up again to come up with new things for you to want. It would be bad enough if the get happy by getting what you want strategy were simply ineffective, but it can better be described as being counterproductive. 

The more you use it, the less satisfied likely you will be. Dissatisfaction, I should add, is incompatible with happiness. 

The ancient Stoics came up with a way to get off the hedonic treadmill. The trick, they said, is to want the things you already have, to love the life you happen to be living. 

To better understand this trick, let’s turn our attention back to the gap theory of happiness. The Stoics agreed that the presence of a gap between what you have and what you want will make you unhappy. Their insight was to realize there’s a second way to close the gap.

You can also close it by wanting what you already have. Let me restate that. Instead of working to get the thing you don’t have, spend your efforts learning to want the things you already do have. 

The Stoics would argue that the person who embraces the life that he happens to be living, even though the life is quite basic, is vastly better off than the millionaire who, despite living in a mansion, is convinced that he would be lastingly happy if only he replaced his Ferrari with a newer model.

Or perhaps replaced his wife of several decades with some young model. This millionaire, by the way, will likely be envied by many people. They will imagine that if only they were living his life, they would at last be happy. All their problems would disappear, and no new problems would arise to replace them.

These people are as deluded as the millionaire is. The primary difference between them and the millionaire is that the millionaire is on a more expensive and extravagant version of the hedonic treadmill than they are. 

OK, you say, point taken. But how can you learn to want what you already have? The trick, the Stoics said, is to develop your ability to accept, appreciate, and even savor the life you already find yourself living. 

One way to accomplish this is by employing the psychological technique known as negative visualization. The technique in question is simple to learn, easy to use, and surprisingly effective. Let’s give it a try. 

I want you to think about your life, about your relationships, and about your circumstances. Pick one thing that plays an important role in your life. It might be your spouse or partner. It might be your job. It might be your children. 

Now take a few seconds to imagine that thing disappearing from your life. 

You can imagine that your spouse has just filed for divorce. You can imagine getting an email telling you that you’ve been laid off from your job. Or, and this one’s kind of sad, you can imagine getting a phone call from the police informing you that your child has been involved in an accident.

Now that you’ve chosen your topic for the negative visualization, go ahead and visualize. Think about the consequences that the disappearance would have for you and the life you’re living. 

Form a mental image of what it would be like. And mentally fill in some of the details of the story. Let that image sink in for a few seconds. OK, visualization is over. Return to life as usual. 

These are, I realize gloomy thoughts. But realize that in proposing that you negatively visualize, I’m not asking you to dwell on thoughts like these. That would be a recipe for a miserable existence. 

What I’m instead doing is asking you to entertain these thoughts for a few seconds. Paradoxically, having flickering negative thoughts, rather than making you sad, will contribute to your happiness. It accomplishes this by shaking your perspective on your circumstances. 

Instead of taking those circumstances, including your spouse, your job, or your child for granted, you will realize how lucky you are to have them. 

Suppose that in your negative visualization you imagined that your child had been in an accident. When you subsequently encounter your child, you might notice that you’re behaving differently towards her than otherwise would have been the case.

Instead of merely acknowledging her existence, you might find yourself savoring her presence. In your life, you might find yourself wanting to do things with her that would be impossible if she ceased being part of your life. 

You might find yourself wanting to read to her, or to play a game with her, instead of watching football. As a result of engaging in negative visualization, those activities, those simple activities, might be the high point of your day.

Negative visualization is effective even if your situation in life is quite difficult. This is because almost always, it’s the case that your situation could be worse than it is, even much worse than it is.

Keeping this in mind can help you not only cope with your circumstances, but keep an upbeat attitude as you do. 

Suppose you find yourself living in a crude cabin. Don’t spend your time there worrying about what it would be like to live in a mansion. That’s going to make you miserable. Think instead about what it would be like to live in a tent. Or to live without any shelter at all.

Doing this will help you appreciate the cabin. 

The sense of appreciation brought on by negative visualization wears off, though. Meaning that negative visualization is like a prescription for ointment that says “apply as needed.” 

Fortunately it’s easy to negatively visualize. It can be done almost anywhere. 

In your kitchen, in your workplace, even in a battlefield trench. It can also be done while you’re being wheeled off to surgery. One of the things you can imagine is that your doctor, instead of saying he needed to operate on you, told you that your condition was inoperable. 

Also, negative visualization takes very little energy, just a few seconds of your time. As a practicing Stoic, I might negatively visualize half a dozen times a day.

In the late afternoon it’s not unusual for my wife to hear my voice call out to her from my office that’s in a distant part of the house. And what I’ll say is, “Thanks for existing.”

On hearing this, she knows from experience that I’ve just completed a negative visualization. She also knows that she herself was the subject of that visualization. 

Penis enhancement story in New Yorker was disturbing reading

I love The New Yorker because the magazine exposes me to great writing about important issues (I skip the fiction, preferring the non-fiction articles). But sometimes what I read is so disturbing, yet so eloquently described, I'm torn between finishing an article or putting it aside.

That was my dilemma with Ava Koffman's piece in the July 3, 2023 issue, The Perils and Promises of Penis-Enlargement Surgery: One doctor's Promethean quest to grow the male member is leaving some men desperate and disfigured.

I'll share a PDF file of the story in case that link doesn't work for non-subscribers.
Download The Perils and Promises of Penis-Enlargement Surgery | The New Yorker

I ended up reading the entire article, which was fascinating and terrifying in equal measure. Until the article came along I knew nothing about this sort of surgery. The first paragraph drew me in, making me want to learn more about why men entrust such a vital and sensitive organ to a surgeon's knife.

They wanted it because they’d just gone through a bad breakup and needed an edge in the volatile dating market; because porn had warped their sense of scale; because they’d been in a car accident, or were looking to fix a curve, or were hoping for a little “software upgrade”; because they were not having a midlife crisis; because they were, “and it was cheaper than a Bugatti Veyron”; because, after five kids, their wife couldn’t feel them anymore; because they’d been molested as a child and still remembered the laughter of the adults in the room; because they couldn’t forget a passing comment their spouse made in 1975; because, despite the objections of their couples therapist, they believed it would bring them closer to their “sex-obsessed” husband (who then had an affair that precipitated their divorce); because they’d stopped changing in locker rooms, stopped peeing in urinals, stopped having sex; because who wouldn’t want it?

Well, nine New Yorker pages later my question became, who would want it?

For while there are plenty of men who are satisfied with their penis-enhancement surgery, there's also plenty who are trapped in a doom loop of seeking help to undo the surgery, which typically isn't easy to accomplish. For the procedure is much more complicated than breast-enhancement surgery.

James Elist is a urologist who is the centerpiece of the article. He developed a silicone implant "shaped like a hot-dog bun which could be implanted just under the skin of the penis to increase its girth and flaccid length."

With the blockbuster launch of Viagra, in 1998, Elist feared that demand for surgical cures for erectile dysfunction would fall, and decided it was time to diversify. Over the years, many of his patients had asked if he could make them bigger while he was down there. Walking around the 90210 Zip Code, where the median breast size seemed to balloon by the day, Elist realized that his next move was staring him in the face.

As he toyed with an early prototype for the Penuma, other doctors were dismissive. The penis—a tentacle that shrinks and swells with an exquisite sensitivity—was nothing like the breast; it wouldn’t be possible, they told him, to put something static under its elastic skin.

Because the F.D.A. requires the pharmaceutical industry to conduct clinical studies of new drugs, it is often assumed that the same is required of medical-device manufacturers. However, a loophole known as the 510(k) process allows companies to implant untested products in patients as long as they can demonstrate that the devices are “substantially equivalent” to those already on the market.

In September, 2004, not long after Elist convinced the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office of the novelty of his invention, he informed the F.D.A. that his “silicone block” was comparable to calf and butt implants. A month later, when the agency cleared the device for the “cosmetic correction of soft-tissue deformities,” the word “penis” did not appear in its indications for use.

The article describes how many of Elist's patients were not at all happy with the penis implant they got, to put it mildly. Here's a sample of the gory details.

For dozens of Penuma patients who spoke to me, the shock of the new was the prelude to graver troubles. Some, like Mick, lost sensation. Others said they experienced stabbing pains in the shower or during sex. Seroma, or excess fluid, was not uncommon. When a defense-and-intelligence contractor’s girlfriend, a registered nurse, aspirated his seroma with a sterile needle, a cup of amber fluid oozed out. The one time they tried to have sex, she told me, the corners of his implant felt like “someone sticking a butter knife inside you.”

Some implants got infected or detached. Others buckled at the corners. Occasionally these protrusions broke through the skin, forming holes that would fester. The hole of the health-spa vice-president was so tiny that he originally mistook its fermented odor for an S.T.D. An engineer with gallows humor played me a video of the snorting crunch his penis made when air moved through a hole. He had two holes, and the skin between them eventually eroded so that a corner of the implant emerged, pearlescent.

Later, doctors unaffiliated with the Penuma would compare such penises to “a torpedo,” “a penguin,” “a pig in a blanket,” “a beer can with a mushroom sticking out on the top,” and “the tipped-down nose of the Concorde.” But the imperturbable assistants at Elist’s clinic, besieged by photographs documenting these phenomena, told patients that they were “healing as expected” and “continuing to heal well!” It was only after months had passed and the men insisted they weren’t healing well at all that Elist would sometimes suggest that an “upgrade” to a bigger size would resolve their problems.

A sad part of Kofman's article was these passages.

What surgeons continually emphasized—the implanters with pride, the explanters with dismay—was that most of the men they were seeing had been of at least average size before going under the knife. (The photographic evidence men sent to me over text and e-mail supported this contention.) “Most don’t have anything physically wrong with them at all, so what they don’t need is vultures preying on them, which is almost always a disaster,” Muir, the London urologist, said.

Along with other urologists and psychiatrists, at King’s College and the University of Turin, Muir conducted a literature review called “Surgical and Nonsurgical Interventions in Normal Men Complaining of Small Penis Size.”

The research showed that men dissatisfied with their penises respond well to educational counselling about the average size, which is 3.6 inches long when flaccid, and 5.2 inches erect. (The average girth is 3.5 inches flaccid, and 4.6 inches erect.) For men who have an excessive and distorted preoccupation with the appearance of their genitals—a form of body dysmorphic disorder—Muir said that cognitive-behavioral therapy and medications may also be necessary.

Which would be a heck of a lot wiser thing to do than get a penis implant.

I'm enjoying Threads as a Twitter killer

I don't post a lot on Twitter, just links to my blog posts, basically, but I follow many people on Twitter and have liked it as a great way to stay informed about subjects I'm interested in: politics, Ukraine war, Oregon news, local weather, and such.

However, after Elon Musk bought Twitter it's become annoying. Musk keeps making arbitrary changes to what once was a successful product. So along with a great many other Twitter users, I've been hoping that a viable alternative to Twitter would come along. In short, a Twitter killer.

Now it has: Threads. 

Instagram’s much-hyped new Twitter-killer app, Threads, is here. And it looks a lot like Twitter. Which is exactly the point.

Many social media users are ready — desperate even — for a solid Twitter replacement, as the app has been going through a particularly rough phase in what many see as its gradual product degeneration under Elon Musk’s leadership. Last weekend, the company started limiting the number of tweets people can read, a questionable business decision that was widely unpopular with users. While there are some alternatives out there, like Mastodon and Bluesky, none have grown to surpass Twitter’s popularity with a critical mass of politically and culturally influential figures.

So Meta-owned Instagram decided to strike while the iron is hot. The Threads app was initially expected to launch later this month, only to be moved up to this Thursday, and now, to today. The app will start to go live for users in 100 countries, although reportedly not in the European Union (more on that later).

Today I got around to setting up Threads after I downloaded the app for my iPhone yesterday. That was easy. I already had a (rarely used) Instagram account, so Threads automatically used the same user name, salembrian.

I then changed my Instagram and Threads user photos to match what I'd been using on Twitter. That's a help to people who followed me on Twitter and wanted to make sure that the Brian Hines on Threads (there's already several of us) is the same guy as the Brian Hines who tweeted as oregonbrian.

Probably I should have figured out a way to make my Threads user name oregonbrian also, but since I won't be posting very much on Threads, it seemed that changing to salembrian had some pluses to it -- such as a feeling of starting fresh on this alternative to Twitter, which I hope turns out to be a Twitter killer.

The look and feel of Threads is close to that of Twitter. Here's a screenshot of my feed.

Threads starts you out with a feed filled with posts, so you aren't met with a blank screen. I started searching for key people and organizations that I follow on Twitter and was pleased to find that many already have a Threads account.

Apparently as time goes on, and a Threads user follows more fellow Threads users, their feed will evolve to be less filled with random posts and more filled with posts from those being followed. That's been my experience so far, which basically means just today.

Threads really does feel like it could be a Twitter killer. This Threads post caught my eye.

Hey, all that is fine with me. I want Threads to grow rapidly and push Twitter into the background as soon as possible. I'm not saying that Meta and Mark Zuckerberg are any sort of social media saints. They're not. 

But at least they favor making their social media offerings fairly safe for users who don't want to be subjected to endless disinformation, hate speech, and other crap that Elon Musk appears to be fine with on Twitter.

So I'm looking forward to seeing what Threads becomes. At the moment, it's looking good.

Our horrible Verizon tech support nightmare

OK, I guess "horrible" and "nightmare" are redundant in the title of this blog post. But after what my wife has gone through the past few days with Verizon, I wanted to include as many nasty adjectives as possible in the title.

Now, maybe this tale of woe will have a happy ending. No matter. Verizon has acted so incompetently after my wife called them about her iPhone losing its cellular service, there's no way we'll go back to thinking of Verizon the way we did before this debacle.

Last Saturday, two days ago, Laurel, my wife, tried to make a call from our home on her iPhone 14 Pro Max that was purchased from Verizon last January. It didn't go through. We have crappy cell service at our house in rural south Salem, Oregon.

However, I'd gotten Verizon to send us a signal booster after we both got new iPhone 14's and it was clear that we still were getting the same one or two bars as we did when we had ancient iPhone 8's. So that was good of Verizon, since the signal booster used our Starlink wi-fi to boost the signal to four strong bars.

Which my iPhone 14 still was getting while Laurel's had no bars at all, just the "SOS" notice that appears when there's no cell service but an emergency call still can be made. Not sure how. Maybe via satellite, since the iPhone 14 has that capability.

I Googled "no cellular connection on iPhone 14" and did some of the recommended things. Turn the phone off and on. Turn airplane mode on and off. Can't remember all that I did, just that when nothing worked, I said to Laurel, "You need to call Verizon."

On our land line, of course, since she had no cell service.

That led to Laurel being on the phone for almost three hours with Verizon tech support staff. First with an agent, then a supervisor, then another tech support person. She ended up being told that the problem had to be with the iPhone, since they couldn't figure out how to get the e-sim (electronic sim) in the iPhone 14 activated again.

So Laurel phoned Apple. We had AppleCare for the almost new iPhone 14. And the tech support person at Apple was pleasingly competent. He did his best to get the cellular connection working, but failed. His view was that the problem almost certainly wasn't with the iPhone, which turned out to be correct.

However, he agreed to send Laurel a new iPhone 14, with the proviso that she pay for the phone with a credit card. Then when Apple got her old iPhone 14 back within ten days, that payment would be reversed. 

Today the new iPhone 14 arrived from Apple. We had some problems transferring data and apps from the old phone to the new one, so Laurel had to call Apple tech support and get some help with that. They recommended backing up to iCloud, then restoring from iCloud, which ended up working fine.

But Apple tech support said Laurel would have to phone Verizon again to have the e-sim activated. 

That's what kicked off the second installment of her Verizon nightmare, for she was on the phone with Verizon tech support staff for four freaking hours, 1:30 to 5:30 pm today. The first tech support person dropped her call, then failed to call her back after she waited for twenty minutes. 

Laurel then called Verizon again and had to go through the horrible process of trying to get a live person to talk to. Verizon has no direct tech support phone number even though she had a ticket number. She ended up talking with four different Verizon staff. 

The last guy was the nicest, but he couldn't figure out the cause of the problem either. He ended up by saying that he'd entered a "Force SIM Status" request, whatever that means. Laurel was told that could take up to five days, so she headed into town and bought a cheap prepaid phone to use until Verizon figures out why she can't use her iPhone for calls and text messages.

Like I said, it's been a nightmare -- about seven hours on the phone over two days with Verizon tech support. Apple tech support was good. Verizon tech support was awful. Hopefully the problem will be resolved in a few days, or we'll be looking for a new cellular service.

Streaming movies and series I've enjoyed recently

Watching entertaining television is as important to my mental health as is my evening dose of relaxing marijuana in a hot bath, both of which I enjoy every day. 

Though we have ten zillion channels (more or less) on our DirecTV subscription, I rarely watch any of them other than for sports and news. Streaming services via our AppleTV device is how my wife and I entertain ourselves, sometimes together, sometimes on separate televisions.

Here's some of what I've enjoyed recently.

Rye Lane on Hulu was highly enjoyable. My wife and I watched this movie together, since we're both fans of romantic comedies. I loved the film's overall vibe. Great dialogue, engaging characters, lots of humor, happy ending (guess that's the case with all romantic comedies). And even though the movie is set in south London, I could understand most of what was said without subtitles. A feel-good film. If you want proof that opposites attract, while also repelling temporarily, Rye Lane provides the evidence.

Extraction 2 on Netflix was a movie that I watched on my own, since I have a much greater attraction to lengthy violent fight scenes and stuff being blown up that my wife does. I wisely preceded my viewing of this film by watching Extraction, since it just made sense to see the sequel after the original. Rest assured that the basic plot is much the same in both movies. Virtually unstoppable guy skilled in hand-to-hand combat and firearms of all types is paid to extract an innocent victim from a nasty situation. Non-spoiler alert: Chris Hemsworth survived Extraction to make Extraction 2, and it sure looks like Extraction 3 is in the works also.

Beef on Netflix appealed to me a lot. Well, aside from the ending of the final episode. That was a letdown, though it didn't take away from the enjoyable drama of watching two Asian-Americans go after each other in marvelously creative and increasingly dire ways after a road rage incident between them escalates into an intense feud. They have to deal with Asian-American stereotypes, such as the high achieving mother who is always in control and never loses her temper. Not happening in Beef, for sure.

Rabbit Hole on Paramount+ provided me a Kiefer Sutherland fix after enjoying him so much in 24, where he played a character vaguely similar to who he is in Rabbit Hole, though also quite different. I enjoyed the twists and turns in this thriller, where you're never quite sure what is real and what isn't, the problem faced by Sutherland and his co-stars also. My main gripe with the series was that it often seemed like it was filmed with a dark filter over the camera. I guess the difficult-to-discern scenes were intended to reflect the shadowy nature of the plot machinations, but I got tired of not being able to tell what was going on. 

Ted Lasso on AppleTV+ deserves a big shoutout since my wife and I watched the final episode of the last season with a bittersweet feeling. Bitter, because a show we liked so much was ending. Sweet, because Ted Lasso gave us so many enjoyable moments over the years. It took us a while to begin watching the series, since we couldn't believe that an American heading to England to coach a soccer team even though he knew next to nothing about soccer could be entertaining. Wow, we were so wrong. The positivity and endearing corniness of Ted Lasso, a truly unforgettable TV character, hooked us on the show instantly. You'll be missed, Ted. (We really did feel like we were losing a friend as the final credits appeared on the screen.)