What to blog?

Okay, you guys, get a room, would you?

Twila and I have been brainstorming ("YOU think of something!" "No, YOU think of something!") what kind of blog to create. I noticed, though, that Twila's maxim that a blog needs a post every day was falling through the ginormous cracks, here on oui-sez. So I was thinking about blogging about being a guy wearing earrings - probably not interesting, but at least somewhat unusual.

Then last night I was watching the NFL draft, which is *extremely* interesting if you have no life. The top 5 or so picks in the draft were manly studs with muscles bulging even in their eyeballs, and I don't want to imagine the rest. And they all had a bunch of friends or something with them, their posses. Those guys were 98% or 102% as studly as the draft picks, and possibly a lot meaner.

Well, what I noticed is that at least 75% of those guys had diamond stud earrings. My idea for an unusual post slowly slithered down the drain, and this is what you get.

Thanks, Baby

Ok, I want to use my first post on this blog to say "Thanks, Baby" to my wonderful wife Merlene. How many other women out there would send their husband alone to the Big Island of Hawaii for nine days to go play with telescopes on Mauna Kea? I'm helping with the public star gazing tonight and tomorrow night. They have ten telescopes of various size for the public to use. Sunday I'll be going to the summit for a tour of one of the big telescopes... Hopefully Keck. Also hoping to talk myself into a job here, they do have a couple of openings for what I do.

The other reason she sent me here was to look at retirement homes to buy. I looked at one today... Six years old, 3br/2ba, 1150 sq ft, quarter acre lot, 119K. Less than a mile to the ocean. Lots of good deals in Puna right now. Maybe I'll post some pics when I figure out how.

The pork lau-lau and spam misubi was good today too. It only takes one day to go local.

More to come....

Earl

Blog begone?

This blog has hit a lull, it seems. My own brain doesn't have a lot of ideas, and Twila hasn't gotten back into the idea of blogging. There is one thread I want to wrap up, though - driving.

I probably implied that I think of myself as a good driver, so I'll comment briefly on that. While in Tarrytown I made a list of qualifications that I think a good driver has, which boil down to knowledge, experience, and attention. As for myself, I think I was a good driver most of my life, but that Geezer Gobbler has taken that away. Nowadays I become distracted too easily, for one thing. The other is that my eyesight, especially depth perception, has fallen below adequate. Even though I used to be able to parallel park with my eyes closed, so to speak, I now find it difficult with my eyes open. So, no, I don't think I'm a good driver.

As for this blog, we'll see what happens.

Twila - photographer and ham.

After Tax

He Sez:
We left for Estes Park at 13:00 on Tuesday. We were supposed to leave at noon, but I had to mark some bills for Where's George. It takes about 50 minutes to get to Estes Park from our house, which is nice. We checked into the Stanley Hotel.

Because of the late start, we didn't have time to drive around a bit in Rocky Mountain National Park, so we went to the bar for a drink. From 16:00 to 18:00 we went on the "Ghost & History" tour, which was really interesting. I don't know how much of the ghost stuff I believe, though there was a guy in our tour who swore that odd things were happening in his room the night before.

We had a good dinner at the hotel.

She Sez:
As fun as Durf is, traveling with him can be a challenge. Let me just spit it out…we are polar opposites. When I'm due to leave on a trip, I am up and out the door, stopping only to brush my teeth. Durf on the other hand, uses the first two hours to wake up, another hour or so to read the paper, drink coffee and stave off hypoglycemia etc etc. Hence the 1:00 departure time.

Once we arrive at our destination, Durf's highest priority is a quick nap. I daresay he dreads the words, "Let's go exploring," which he usually hears from me within a nanosecond of our dropping our bags on the hotel room floor.

Inevitably, I grab a quick shot of Happy Durf. We have thousands of these photos:
















But you see, this next photo shows Happy Durf, too. After-nap Happy Durf. See him? Right next to Sam-I-Am.
















He Sez:
Surprisingly, I disagree with a couple of Twila's contentions. She says she is "up and out the door," but that is misleading. It is true that when she has something to do, she attacks it without delay, so her packing, etc., are usually done before I begin. But when the actual moment of leaving arrives, there is inevitably a period of "Oops" in which she runs back and forth doing suddenly-remembered things.

I also challenge the statement that my first priority on arrival is a quick nap. Since I almost always do the driving, it is true that I'm often tired after a long trip. But my first priority generally is to head for a bar to quench the great thirst that driving evokes.

Micturition as lifestyle.

Getting old is something everyone wants to do but no-one wants to happen. In a couple of months I'll be 65, which I consider to be the beginning of late middle age. I don't think about it much, though, especially after we had all the mirrors removed from our house. That first glance in the morning was getting to be too much of a shock.

I'm sure that almost everyone has the same reaction. You get up one day and look in a mirror and think, "How the heck did *that* happen?" You're looking at a wrinkled, sagging face with various spots and bumps, and you just know that it really isn't yours... but it is. You might think you're still a kid, but the forensic evidence suggests otherwise.

I'm not afraid of dying. It's living that scares me more, especially as my life-o-dometer creeps higher and higher. The worst part is that family and friends become ill more often and more seriously, and their number begins to decline more rapidly. It would also be frightening, if I let myself think about it, to become disabled because of a stroke or Alzheimer's disease and not be able to escape.

But what bothers me most is what's happening now - my body is beginning to let me down in the most annoying ways. I am, of course, weaker and slower, which I expected, with the plus side that I don't care very much. The achy and creaky and cracky parts are still minor. But every year brings more indignities, not the least of which is that certain valves are not as reliable as they were not very long ago.

There are ways to deal with such things, including products that you can pretend you're buying for someone else. It's just annoying to have to resort to those solutions, which soon become more important than knowing that a sub-3-hour marathon is now forever beyond your grasp.

ATW.

April 18, 2011 (accidentally posted to NYC blog)

Today is the official End Of Tax Season. Twila took her final return to the post office; when she came home, she opened the door and yelled, "YAHOO!" Or "GOOGLE", or something. Anyway, we're celebrating with shrimp and Scrabble.

Tomorrow, for our annual After Tax Weekend, we're going to the Stanley Hotel (where Stephen King wrote "The Shining") in Estes Park for a 2-night stay. They play "The Shining" 24 hours a day there, but I don't know if we'll watch it again (as if the place won't be creepy enough). I don't remember the movie, I just remember how scary it was.

While we're in Estes Park I hope to convince Twila to start blogging again, if I survive the hike she has planned for our first day. Tax season is over and we'll be in an interesting place. Our first blog, "He Sez, She Sez" started when we were on vacation in Venice and decided it would be easier to blog than to write letters to everyone. It was really a hoot, at least in our opinion.

Durf's excellent adventure.

April 16, 2011 (accidentally posted to NYC blog)

I was going to blog about heros today, until I decided that I'd better say more about my micro-movie adventure yesterday.

It all started a couple of years ago when I realized that most major studmuffins wear bling. I began to wonder if I were the only one who wasn't. But it seemed like it would be a significant change, since I didn't even start wearing my wedding ring all the time until three years ago, when the springs in the couch started to poke through.

Twila and I were shopping in NYC a while ago when we saw a guy wearing earrings. Twila smiled and said to me, "Too bad you're the wrong color for that." The guy looked good, though, so I thought about it more.

Yesterday was the appointed day. I told Twila I'd do it, even if I weren't in the mood at the moment. We drove to Longmont and I let Kaiser drain off some of my blood, then we went across the street to Piercing Pagoda. It wasn't open yet, so we spent some time looking at the bling. After a while I told Twila that I'd rather wait and do it some other time, but she asked why and I couldn't come up with a good answer.

Finally they opened and I began gasping for air. Fortunately there was another customer, a girl about 13 years old, who went first. She got in the chair and I watched closely. She didn't even flinch. Then the Pagoda girl came over and asked Twila what she wanted. I butted in and pointed to earrings and said, "I'd like them, and I want them installed." There was no turning back at that point, without looking like a studwuss.

That's when my education began. Here was I, a 64-year-old guy, about to learn what most 7th grade girls already know. It turned out to be more than I'd expected.

Speaking of age, the Piercing Pagoda does enforce a minimum age policy. To get a piercing there you have to be at least 2 months old. True. But a child of that age does get special treatment. PP recognizes that after stabbing one of a baby's earlobes, doing the other would be a really big hassle. So they use two piercer persons and stab both lobes at once. I understand the philosophy. That's why I had all my wisdom teeth extracted at the same time.

It was time to hop in the chair. I wasn't nervous at all, even though I seemed to be trembling just a bit. It was a new environment for me.

The Pagoda girl slapped some alcohol on my earlobes and then put a dot on each, kind of a target. She and Twila spent about 5 minutes deciding whether the dots were in the same place on each lobe. I refused to look in the mirror. How would I know? They were the experts. Finally they agreed that the dots were okay.

Pagoda girl asked if I wanted her to count to 3 or just do it. I told her to just do it, because I really didn't want to have to anticipate it too much. I hadn't asked anyone if the piercing hurt, but I had watched the non-flinching girl earlier, and I wasn't too worried. I felt Pagoda girl put something against my lobe, and then she pulled the trigger. It felt like a nail cutting slowly through my skin. I was determined not to flinch, but I probably blanched, at least. Pagoda girl asked if I were okay, and I said, "Why sure! Why wouldn't I be?", as I pushed myself back upright in the chair. The other ear was a lot less painful. The good news was that she didn't have to push earring nails through the freshly torn holes... they were already there. Apparently the piercing gun just shoots the earrings through your ear and then slaps the clutch (new word for me) on the other side.

My education wasn't over, however. I have to wear these studly studs for 4-6 weeks, according to PP, and probably 8 weeks, according to Twila. The older you are, the longer it takes to heal. So for the next couple of months I have to wear the earrings always, even when sleeping. Twice a day I have to put some antiseptic solution on the earring nails and rotate them one full turn. It seems like a lot of work, but I'll do it. Probably mothers do it for their 2nd grade daughters, but I'm on my own.

Actually, I think the earrings look good. I definitely look more studmuffinly. And there are some other advantages, it seems. Yesterday I went to a drugstore and a young woman held the door open for me. She might have been in shock, I confess.

The deficit.

Just a quickie...

Republicans, stinging from their defeat in 2010, quickly latched onto the federal deficit as their cause célèbre. Today the GOP is a one-trick pony, harping constantly about the deficit, the deficit, the deficit.

I wonder why no-one mentions that when Bill Clinton left office not only was the budget balanced, but there was no deficit. There was a surplus. Then George W. Bush slithered into office and promptly enacted, with the Republican Congress, huge tax cuts, followed by an unnecessary war and injudicious spending.

Today's large federal debt was created mostly by Bush and a Congress that was completely Republican-controlled until 2008.

It is true that the Obama administration contributed with some badly needed stimulus monies, but the debt that the GOP is railing against is primarily of their own making. Since they said nothing when they were in control of the government, it is hard to imagine that their bluster today is anything but political posturing.

Heroes.

I decided to write a post about the word 'hero', because it seems to me that it is often used incorrectly. Then I realized that I really don't know what 'hero' means, so I looked it up: "a person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities." (The definition of 'heroine' is the same, except for the 'man' part.)

According to that definition, someone is a hero because people think he is. That's too fuzzy, especially considering the bozos voting. (Not to be cynical, but the state of politics in this country the last 10 years has... well, made me cynical.)

Consider 9/11. The people who were killed in the World Trade Center were called heroes, but they weren't - they were victims.

How about firemen who rushed into the doomed structures? You could make a better case that they were heroes, but I think they were just firemen doing their jobs. Someone who chooses a hazardous occupation and then is killed in the line of duty is not, necessarily, a hero.

Death alone does not confer heroism.

Then there is Flight 93. Some passengers rose and attacked the terrorists, preventing the plane from crashing into the Capitol. You could make a good argument that they didn't take action until they'd learned that they were doomed if they did nothing, so they acted in self-defense. However, I choose to call those people heroes because it would feel wrong to deny them that honor.

And then there's war. Many people say that anyone killed fighting is a hero. I disagree. They aren't heroes, they're soldiers. Soldiers sometimes die, it's a known and accepted job hazard. We don't know why people decide to enlist and go to war - maybe it's the only job they can get, or maybe they want to be able to shoot at people.

World War II might be a different story. Soldiers were fighting for something important then, and to an extent I think that even the act of volunteering was heroic.

I can't say the same about the Vietnam War, though no doubt many who enlisted voluntarily thought they were doing something important. I'm inclined to think that many who refused induction because they thought that war, or that particular war, was wrong were somewhat heroic.

The students killed at Kent State? No, because there was no reason to think that anyone would be shot, even if they were protesting for the right reasons. They were victims.

Certainly there are many soldiers who were true heroes. Flopping on a live grenade to save others is certainly heroic. There are many other examples.

I guess I still don't know exactly what 'hero' means, except that someone is a hero if you think he is. I just wish people would be more careful with the term.

L'adventure du jour.

This post is related in micro-movies because Twila's camera was in video mode, unbeknownst to her.


Part 1:

Part 2:

Bookmarks.

I was looking for a website a couple of days ago. I knew I'd bookmarked it, but where? I'd started looking through my bookmarks when I noticed that my "Unsorted Bookmarks" list is about 500 URLs long. Not much help. I've been saying for a long time that I need to sort my bookmarks. A long time. But it seems it's never quite high enough on my priority list at whatever moment.

I use Firefox and Chrome most of the time. If they aren't working on a particular site, I use Safari. I only use Internet Explorer when I'm truly desperate. My bookmarks on those browsers, except IE, are merged by Xmarks, a very good bookmark program. But that really means that I have an even bigger mess to sort through.

So I got thinking. What good are bookmarks, anyway? Sure, you want a few handy, like your bank, your favorite stores, your news outlet, etc. But what about the rest? I know I have some really great bookmarks from over a year ago in my collection, but I'm never quite bored enough to look at them again. If I want to find something, I just Google it. Maybe bookmarks are, for the most part, obsolete.

BTW, StumbleUpon is a lot of fun. If you haven't tried it, do!

Of the $, by the $, and for the $.

I think it is fair to say, if not obvious, that the United States is the most materialistic nation on earth. We are driven by a desire for money and for stuff. What does that get us?

We have a very high standard of living, when measured by stuff. Houses, cars, boats, electronics, whatever, we have a lot of it. We are by far the wealthiest nation in the world, but we rank only 14th in happiness according to a Gallup Poll taken between 2005 and 2009. As a society we are, at the moment, bitterly divided. As individuals we are stressed. We work hard for money, but money doesn't make anyone happy (though it is better to have some than not).

Two of the primary components of a country are the government and the economy. How are we doing there?

It truly is a joke to say that our government is responsive to the people. For all the fuss made over elections, it always goes back to money. In countries like India and Mexico bribery of government officials is an accepted way of life, which I've always thought is corrupt.

The U.S. has laws against bribery. If you walk up to one of your representatives who happens to be honest... yeah, I know... and say, "I'll give you $1000 if you vote in favor of my widget company," you could be in deep doody. But if you say, I'll give you a $1000 campaign contribution if you vote in favor of my widget company," well, happy widgets. Bribing government officials is legal in the U.S., if you use the right language. And our officials do follow the money.

Something should be done about that, but it probably won't happen until we revolt like the people of Egypt did... a non-violent revolution.

Our economy is consumption-based, and this blog would be too long if I started ranting about the evils of capitalism. Consider the primary differences between conservatives and liberals.

Conservatives believe in small government and every man (and woman) for himself. They say (I don't know what they really think) that people in trouble are people who don't or didn't work hard enough. They rail about our "nanny state," and would no doubt eliminate all forms of public assistance if they could (and, oh my, they are trying).

There is some good in the conservative philosophy when it isn't taken to extremes. Money does motivate people to work, and a smaller government could be a more efficient government. But there are people who need help for reasons beyond their control, such as the infirm and the elderly (ahem). And what about the arts, which tend to pay very little? You might be a great writer and want to do a book, but it's very difficult when you're working 40 or more hours a week. That's sad. Great artists are remembered forever, great business men for a generation or two.

Liberals... oops, naughty word!... progressives believe that a decent government provides a decent standard of living for all its citizens. A single-payer health care system, for example, means that we'd no longer have to worry about whether we'll be able to get health care when we need it, and that we wouldn't have to deal with insurance companies that care nothing about us as individuals - and what do they contribute to health care, anyway?

Also, a free, high-quality education available to anyone would improve our society, government, and economy in many ways.

I, a liberal, believe that the government should provide basic (at least) sustenance - food, shelter, health care - to anyone who wants it, whether they can't do it for themselves or just want to paint a masterpiece.

For all the loud complaining about "European-style nanny states," the people who live in them tend to be far happier than us.

Back to work.

Yes, I'm working again. That's good in a couple of ways. For one, cra... stuff disappears from here. For another, money appears. But it's really a bit of work. These are the things I have to do:

• Decide what to sell.
  
• Find the item, all accessories and manuals and whatever.
  
• If any accessories are missing or damaged, order new ones.
• Determine a starting price and, sometimes, a minimum price.
• Find pictures online or take photographs of the item.
  
• Write a description, including a plausible reason for selling.
  
• Put all of that stuff together into an eBay page format.
  
• Find packaging.
  
• Determine shipping costs.
  
• Decide how long the auction should be.
  
• Post it all.
  
• Answer any questions that come up.
  
• Verify payment.
  
• Ship.
  
• Handle returns, complaints, etc., if any.

At the moment I have 5 items online. The only one that has bids so far is my old Kindle, which has been bid up to $71. That's not bad, since a new Kindle 3 sells for $139. The other 4 items don't have bids. Two of them are being watched (often bids don't appear until the last few hours). Two I just put on today and no-one has seen them yet.

eBay selling is kind of fun, everything considered, although not as much fun as eBay buying.

In a completely unrelated item, while browsing I stumbled on these heels:

Very cool, but I don't know who would wear them.

My New Best Friend

(This is my first time posting to a blog – I hope you readers will be merciful. Although I’ve never actually met Durf , I know him vicariously through my husband Ed, whose life seems strangely intertwined with Durf’s.)

Durf has his helicopter. I have my new BFF that I spent last weekend enjoying: the Karcher K2.21 power washer.

Once again, we Central Californians had a long winter of rain, fog, and drear. My backyard and patio had become disgustingly green and slick with mold, mildew and untold algae-types. I trekked to the local hardware store, searching for what must be the chemical solution to my problems. I left with my new pal.

Oh, the power and the glory! My patio was de-greened, clean and the way God intended cement to be. The walls, the yard furniture, there’s no end to what I can clean! My husband thinks I’m a bit extreme, but has to admit the patio looks great.

Political gender.

I wasn't going to blog today because I'm busy getting ready to sell things on eBay - I have to pay for that radio somehow. But I keep seeing bulletins about the government being shut down and that's too annoying to ignore. It isn't that I hate Republicans - I actually have a friend who calls himself that. But the GOP now is acting like adolescent boys whose brains are addled with overdoses of testosterone. They'll fight, they won't back down, and it makes no difference if what they're trying to do makes any sense at all. Then there are the Democrats, who are more like young women - confrontation averse, timid, and desperate to please.

Take a pick.

I pick Democrats, because at least their brains are still working. If only they had balls.

Gathering rosebuds, Part 3.

Coaxial helicopters, the type with two rotors and a fly bar, are called 2D because they operate in one plane; that is, the rotors stay parallel with the ground. That makes them easy to fly, but they are less realistic and can't do aerobatics. Collective pitch helis, though, are 3D. I wanted one not to do aerobatics, but because they look better.

I received the mCPX only a couple of weeks ago. It's beautiful. I read the manual, charged the batteries, and soon I was doing rolls and loops and upside-down flying. The problem was, I wasn't trying to do any of those things. As soon as the heli lifted off the ground, it zoomed off in one direction or another, usually "landing" by hitting a wall. I began to learn about repairs, but I also realized that I needed to learn how to fly a collective pitch helicopter.

After a misfire or two, I found a really good website devoted to RC helicopters, with a large section devoted to flying CP helis. One of the first things he said was that it could take weeks to learn how to fly. That's probably broken down this way: 5 minutes flying, 3 days of repairs. But I'd been through that with the Draganflyer, and I was anxious to learn. Then he started talking about radios, the transmitters that control the helis. Here is my current radio collection:

The way that happens is that a radio is commonly packaged with a new helicopter, adding about $50 to the price. The most advanced radio in my collection is the DX4e, which came with the mCPX. I was delighted. Then my flight instructor told me that none of those radios is any good. He said that to maximize the experience of flying a CP heli, I needed a programmable radio, which itself takes two weeks to learn. I wasn't happy about that, but there are some good points. The radio he recommended has ten areas that can be programmed for ten different planes. Even if I couldn't bind the radio to the helis I have now, I could use it for future helis and planes. The only future - no less than a year from now - helicopter I might consider buying is a large one for outdoor flight. That's way down the road, but I finally decided that buying a programmable radio made a lot of sense.

Oh, well. You can't take it with you.

Pilot stress.

This is a little movie that demonstrates pilot stress. I wanted more of the heli in it, and I was trying a camera that, obviously, is not HD (soon to be on eBay), but 2=2.

Gathering rosebuds, Part 2.

One of the fun things about the Draganflyer is that it can carry a video camera. I have a video from a flight that I'll post when I find it.

The DF weighs 18.2 oz., so it takes a lot of lift to stay aloft. That makes it difficult to fly inside; the heavier a heli is in relation to the rotors' surface area, the more throttle adjustments are required. Keeping the DF hovering at the same altitude requires constant throttle up/down. The best I've been able to do indoors is hover and simple back-and-forth.

With winter and wind (the DF can handle winds up to 10 mph), there isn't that much outdoor flying time in CO. A couple of years ago I decided to invest in a smaller helicopter that I could fly indoors. I bought a Blade CX2.

The CX2 isn't tiny, but it only weighs 8 oz. OTOH, it has less rotor surface area than the DF. Near-constant throttle action is still required, but I can fly in the house. Another advantage of the CX2 is that it looks more like a helicopter. The main differences are that it has two rotors, a fly bar, and no tail rotor. The purpose of the extra rotor and fly bar are to keep the heli stable, with its rotors parallel to the ground. That makes it a lot easier to fly, but much less realistic.

Flying the CX2 inside, I still didn't have enough confidence to learn what I really needed to learn, to fly in all directions. Flying with the nose away is easy, but when the heli turns the actions of the controls are reversed. If the heli is flying toward you, you have to request it to fly right to get it to fly left. That sounds easy, sort of, but when any wrong move will result in pieces flying everywhere, and when one hand is constantly jiggling the throttle, the pressure rises. After a while I decided to go even smaller.

That is my MCX. It's small and it only weighs .9 oz. It's closer to the size of the copter I saw in the James Bond movie. It's really easy to fly inside, and I learned to fly in all directions. When I want to fly nowadays, I flop back in my chair, take off from the coffee table, fly around in circles and every which way, then land on the coffee table. I can't remember the last time I broke any parts on the MCX. The only limitation is one I can't escape, a lack of depth perception that has increased with the approach of geezerhood. I have to bring the copter down slowly to be sure it's over the coffee table.

Finally I decided I was ready for what I'd really wanted all along - a collective pitch helicopter.

...to be continued

Gathering rosebuds.

NuSTAR is over for me, I'm back to my lousy retirement income (Social Security plus whatever I can hawk on eBay), and I'm not on Medicare yet. Nevertheless, I seem to be spending money as if it would reappear automatically. Some of it can't be helped: the house and yard need some repairs, we had to buy a new bicycle rack for our Outbacks ($360!), supplies have to be restocked, etc. Other items are discretionary, though, and I seem to be headed down that proverbial slippery slope. At least it helps to solve my conundrum of "spend while I can or save until it's too late".

The current money vortex is helicopters. Many years ago I was watching a movie, James Bond, I think, and a villain was flying a small radio-controlled heli in a hanger. I thought that was way cool, and I was determined that someday I would do that myself. So in January 2004 I bought a Draganflyer IV.

(I neglected to include a size reference in the photos, unfortunately.)

The Draganflyer, named after its inventor, Joe Flyer, is 19.5" from rotor center to rotor center, diagonally. As you can see (clickable, if you'd like), it is a small circuit board, some arms, motors, and mounting parts. The battery goes on the tray in the lower center. The price for the heli and a radio was $955, a lot. But that was just the beginning.

Since it was winter, I took the DF into our triple garage in Dublin to learn how to fly... well, to hover, initially. That's when I learned that flying is more difficult than it looks. The DF would rise off the ground and zoom off in any direction, usually crashing with broken parts flying everywhere. That went on for weeks. I estimate that to date I have spent $3000 on the DF, and it doesn't even look like a real helicopter.

Parts weren't the only expense.

That's a eucalyptus tree behind our house in Dublin. The red circle indicates the position of my DF, which was hopelessly stuck. Eventually I had to hire a tree company to come out, climb the tree, and rescue my poor heli. $$$$$

The biggest problem was (and is) that as the helicopter gets farther away it becomes very hard to discern which side is the front. I've tried hanging things from it and painting it, but that hasn't helped much. Part of the problem was that I wasn't a good enough pilot to determine direction using the controls - mostly I kept the nose pointed away from me, and if that changed I was in deep doodoo.

My most spectacular crash happened a couple of years ago. I was flying behind our house here in CO and behaving myself - keeping the DF close. Then I noticed that across the street a bunch of guys who were there to do yard maintenance were watching. I decided to show off a little. I thought it would be okay if I gained altitude, as long as I kept the orientation the same. So up she went, and before long it wasn't much more than a dot in the sky. Then a little breeze came along and blew the DF and I had no idea how to control it. I was desperately working the radio when the heli disappeared over the top of our house. The yard guys were standing mouths agape watching, while I was running around the house to spot the DF again. I did, about two seconds before it crashed into the road at high speed. I suppose the only good thing in that was that the yard guys thought it was more or less normal to land that way.

...to be continued

What's scarier?

A couple of nights ago I had a dream in which I was very old. I don't know exactly how old, but my face looked like that of an unwrapped Egyptian mummy. Everyone I'd known in life was already dead and had been for some time. It freaked me out.

So I'll pose this question: What's scarier, a life too short or a life too long?

Manners.

In 1984 Jim, a friend and co-worker at Lam Research, walked up to me, grimaced slightly, looked me in the eyes, and said, "People would respect you a lot more if you got that booger out of your nose." I rushed into the men's room, looked in a mirror, gasped, and then, er, blew my nose. That was 27 years ago and I still remember it.

Was it good manners or bad manners for Jim to say that to me? I don't know what Miss Manners would say about it, but I was grateful that Jim helped me avoid walking around with a giant goober visible in one of my nostrils. Surely there would have been a lot of grimaces, but most people wouldn't have said anything. And when I'd looked in a mirror later... ACK!

When I began my first job in the semiconductor industry at American Microsystems in 1975 or so, I sat down for lunch at a random table in the cafeteria. There were mostly line dollies at the table, and after a while one of them said to me, "You really have lovely table manners, for a man." That felt good, and it made me more thankful that my mother had trained me well. Some people have table manners, some have different table manners, and others have none at all. You know what I mean.

But manners differ depending where you are. In India people often eat with their fingers, for example. In France dinners can last for hours. In England the food is inedible, but I don't know if that goes under manners.

In Korea I told a limo driver to take me to a hotel, but it was the wrong hotel. When we arrived he carried all my luggage inside. A short while later he came back out with my luggage and told me it was the wrong hotel. After he took me to the correct hotel and deposited my bags in the lobby, I tried to hand him a few dollars. He wouldn't take them. Tipping isn't done in Korea. There's tipping in Germany, but only a couple of euro for really good service. In the U.S.... well, that might be another blog topic.

I learned new customs in Japan. One is that it is very impolite to blow your nose in public, especially when you're eating. (Younger people there are starting to ignore that rule.) So people at the dining table sniff noisily to avoid blowing their noses. (Dabbing at your nose with your handkerchief is acceptable, as long as it's silent.) That's one custom that really drives Twila nuts. There you are trying to eat eggs over easy and the entire table is sniffing and swallowing. It's a bit unsettling at first, I admit.

Japanese also slurp their noodles. It really is the easiest way to eat them with chopsticks, and the noises are caused by noodles and soup and not that other stuff.

The one I like best is that it's common in Japan and very acceptable to use a toothpick at the table. That one makes a *lot* of sense. Why sit there with something stuck between your teeth, trying like made to get it out with your tongue, and being uncomfortable the entire time? You don't have to take a toothpick and open your mouth wide and show everyone what you're after. You cradle it in your hand and keep your mouth as closed as possible. It is perfectly sensible, and I almost always put toothpicks on our table when we have guests. They usually don't partake, but I do.

But back to that booger. I read in a newspaper a few days ago that in Thailand it is perfectly acceptable to pick your nose in public. They consider it a normal part of good grooming. Let's admit it, all guys pick their noses, usually surreptitiously. Then there are the times that someone walks in when your finger is up to a knuckle inside a nostril and you desperately pretend that you were just scratching.

Women don't pick their noses, ever, according to Twila. And I believe her, because I don't recall having seen her do it. The part about women never farting has been proven false many times, and the sh*t doesn't smell argument is unconvincing.

Anyway, I don't know about the nose picking thing. I've done it on rare occasions, in private, but I don't like to see people doing it, and then flicking the berries out their car windows. Or anywhere. Maybe a couple of weeks in Thailand would change my opinion, but for now I'm with Twila on that one.

The sandwich.

I had a different idea for today's post, but then this kind of jumped out of nowhere and said, "Blog me! Blog me!"

It all started when I felt a little hungry and decided to have brunch. Twila had picked up some sandwiches at our local, cooly-named grocery store, King Soopers. I'd had one of these Deli Club sandwiches before and wasn't crazy about the cheese, so I decided to find out what kind of cheese it was. Here's the label (clickable):

So I was like, "OMG, it's a SANDWICH!" I thought you made a sandwich by slapping some meat and cheese between two pieces of bread. I never suspected they're actually made from chemicals in some secret laboratory. Rennet, for example. Who knows what rennet is? It certainly doesn't sound like something that should be in a sandwich.

The worst part of all is, I still don't know what kind of cheese was in it.