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I picked up son at the airport when he came home for the first
time in a year and a half the week before Memorial Day.
He was only here for a few days, stopping in Austin on his way
back to California to help youngest daughter move to a new
apartment.
 I had a nine-day stretch off from work the week of Memorial day,
and only had to use up three vacation days to do it. Most of the
time was spent at the lake building a section of deck between
the boathouse and the wall to anchor the floating dock. M
was able to help on the weekends, but we did take a few more
breaks to relax on those days. The lounge chair in the
picture is in the shade most of the day - a nice spot to sit and
read, waving at the people in the boats as they go by. Now
we've covered the waterfront with much-needed new construction.
Our upstream neighbors have replaced all of their decking as
well, and since their house is higher up the hill and they're
not getting any younger, they built an elevator to get down to the water,
and perhaps more importantly, back up the hill afterward. You can tell when a stranger comes by in a
boat since they instinctively point and stare. It's really a
pretty nifty thing to see.
 We
spent last weekend in and around the city. On Saturday, we
headed for the beach pretty early, planning to leave before the
sun got too intense. But it was just so pleasant, we didn't
leave until mid afternoon. I spent most of the time under the
umbrella, but my white skin turned a nice shade of red anyway.
Maybe the sunscreen washed off in the water.
The seagulls made good subjects for trying out different
shooting modes on my new camera. The umbrella's secondary
purpose is protection from flying bird droppings. With a 2 GB
memory chip, I can take 580 pictures before it gets full, and
the battery is supposed to be good for 2500 pictures, so I
should be set for any vacation in the future.
After we got back to the apartment and cleaned up, we did some
shopping and cooked a nice steak for dinner. On Sunday morning,
we took our usual 15 mile ride on the trails through the woods.
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For the past couple of months, I've been trying to accomplish
something that should be really easy, but only just this evening
have I finally felt any hope of success. The task was to get new
cell phones while keeping our family plan but reducing the
number of users from three to two (youngest daughter is on her
own new plan in her home area code).
We started gathering information by stopping by a store for our
carrier, where we were told we could only get discounted prices
if we were new customers. Never mind that we've been paying them
every month for mostly unused minutes. Undeterred, I found their
web site and established a username in order to make changes
there, where the phone prices were much better, and there would
be no store overhead or hassle. Wrong. The website told me that
because our plan was "old" (old is a relative term in this
business - a year is a loooong time), I would have to call
customer service. And so I did. After about 10 menu steps
and 30 minutes of waiting, I reached a human - in fact a very
nice woman in California somewhere, who fixed me up with
everything as we talked, a process which took about an hour.
Two new phones, at no cost, and with no shipping charges, and
our plan set for two lines, with 450 anytime rollover minutes
(more than we'll ever use in a month). I told M that we were all
set.
Two weeks pass, and we have received no phones. I called
customer service again, wading through the 10 menus and the 30
minute wait, to see if we should expect delivery soon. It
seems the previous person had been successful in modifying our
plan, but a "hold" had been placed on the phone order. "And what
does this mean to me," said I? The voice said that the new
equipment order with all the freebies would have required
manager approval, and none would be forthcoming. We could,
however, pay a hefty price per phone and several additional
charges, and they would put in an order, or we could try the
website again, which should now work for us.
Back to the website. I can select a phone which is free after
rebates and get it into my "shopping cart", but there is no exit
to pay or check out when I go to view my cart, even though the
phone is in the cart. Most peculiar.
Back on the phone to customer service. Two times through the 10
step menu, 30 minutes on hold, etc. and the guy on their end
can't figure out how to get it to work in 45 minutes. He says
our plan, which has just been in service for less than a month,
is already out of date, and in order to get new phones, we'll
have to quit this plan and sign up for a new one with 700
minutes for an extra $20 a month. He was nice about it in a
strange sort of way, which helped me resist the urge to ask him
if anyone in that company had a clue about anything. I finally
told him I needed to get back to working and would figure out
what to do next.
After work, I drove to the cell phone company store just across
the way from the apartment (a different store from the
first one) to see if they had any ideas. Alas, they would
have to charge me their prices for phones, which were in the $50
to $75 range, since they weren't allowed to match the web
prices. I told the store clerk that I really didn't want to do
that. He paused for a second, then pulled out a slip of
paper and wrote something on it. "Call this number, and
they'll fix you up," he said. "You don't understand," I
protested, "I've been on the phone to customer service three
times already." "Ah, but this isn't customer service -
this is a direct number to where all they do is upgrades." I
left with the slip of paper with the magic number.
I was more than a little skeptical, but I called when I got
home. I almost fainted when a human answered. I began explaining
my situation, wondering if the guy at the store had just been
trying to get rid of me, but lo and behold, it appeared I had in
fact reached the fabled land of cell phone fulfillment. A very
pleasant and unhurried man, much like the first woman I had
spoken with, assured me that he could help me and would match
the web prices for the phones of my choice. As we worked on
specifics, I asked several times if there was a catch, or some
hidden fees, but he assured me that the new phones would be sent
out via FedEx, and should arrive in two days. No hidden
charges. Our monthly plan would stay the same. And I
should have a great day. I'll know if I had a great day by the
end of the week.
Maybe there is a tooth fairy. |
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A two month gap since my last post - time to catch up.
My balcony garden has been producing enough tomatoes that I can
eat what I want and even give a few away to work friends. BLT
sandwiches are my favorite lunch right now. I solved the problem
of plants drying out on 3-day weekends when I'm away by putting
big tubs under each planter. since it takes a gallon of
water per plant per day, I fill the tub with the appropriate
amount, and it soaks up as needed. One end of the balcony
looks like a jungle.
Youngest daughter and M drove in from different directions
Friday evening so we could all go to a college graduation
celebration for one of daughter's long time friends at a beach
house out on the island on Saturday, provided by his parents. It
was a beautiful day, and in between eating, we had two long
group walks along the surf. Lots of other people were out
enjoying the day just like us, sunning, swimming, sailing, or
kite surfing. M and I left for the apartment around 8 PM, and
when we got here, I slept like a rock. This morning, we went out
bike riding for a couple of hours as usual.
We've made all the reservations and paid the money for what
should be a great summer vacation. M and I will be going, along
with my parents, on a 12-day Mediterranean cruise for the first
two weeks of August. We'll all fly from Houston to Paris, then
on to Rome to board the ship. The ports of call include Naples
(where we used to live), Venice, Dubrovnik, Messina, Barcelona,
Cannes, and Livorno/Florence. With all the kids out of college,
we're a little better positioned to do nice vacations. Besides,
M and I didn't do anything special to celebrate our 25th
anniversary since I had been out of work for nine months and money was
tight. My parents didn't do anything big for their 50th a
few years back, so this should make up for it on both counts.
I've even ordered a new digital camera so we can record our
adventure for posterity. |
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Last Saturday, M and I went to see the
Cirque du Soleil troupe that was in town doing a show called
"Delirium" at the Toyota Center, the big basketball / hockey
arena downtown. I've been wanting to see one of their shows for
awhile, but we missed them the last time they came through, with
a different show under a tent. There have been some features on
television about the creators of these shows, and it is a pretty
amazing story about how a guy from Canada transformed the idea
of the circus into a showcase for all sorts of performers,
choreographed with modern dance, music, and very elaborate sets
and costumes. They keep rolling out completely new shows that
travel all over the world, so audiences keep coming back. There
are several permanent shows in some of the big Las Vegas
casinos, all different. The tickets were not cheap, and I got a
parking ticket (my fault for misreading the sign). Since it was
pretty abstract, and all the music was created for the shows,
some people in the audience were probably wondering what they
had got themselves into, but I liked the show. Maybe we can
catch one of the Las Vegas shows sometime - an excuse to take a
little vacation.
I volunteered to work with a crew from my company on a Habitat
for Humanity house in a nearby town all day tomorrow, though it
is threatening rain. We're supposed to put up roof trusses,
decking, and tarpaper. I tend to be a bit cynical about
charities sometimes, but Habitat is the real deal. I really like
their policy of making the future owner of the house work
alongside the volunteers - something they call sweat equity. It
is my favorite kind of charity - helping those who are willing
to put out some effort to help themselves.
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After three weekends of cold, rainy "wintry" weather, spring is
here in the city. The berry vines, tomatoes, and azaleas are
blooming, and the trees are leafing out. I put two more tomato
plants out in pots on the balcony, just in case the ones from
last year die of old age. (Hey, you never know!)
Those weekends with no bike riding exercise made me gain a few
pounds, so we made up for it this weekend. I've been noticing
that my blood pressure is sometimes a little high when I donate
blood or get it checked for some other reason. (The dentist even
checked it a few weeks ago - I guess he didn't want me dying on
him in the chair as he was drilling.) So, I found a new doctor,
and she is having me try a low dose beta blocker. Getting older
is a real nuisance, but the alternative isn't so good. I quit my
last doctor because she had a TV with continuous drug
commercials blaring in her waiting room, and it was just too
irritating. Both times I waited for an appointment there, pill
pushers would come in with their suitcases of samples to give
her to try out on her unsuspecting patients. What a
racket...
I've only seen three of the movies nominated for Academy Awards
tonight.
I went to see Brokeback Mountain to find out what the fuss was
about, and although I can imagine that a scene or two would
cause a bad reaction among any homophobes in the audience, I
liked the movie. The plight of the cowboys in love is very
nicely woven throughout the script, in such a way that only the
most intransigent ideologue could fail to feel compassion for
both the men and their wives. And of course the larger theme of
the tragedy of forbidden love under any circumstance is
timeless.
I went to see Transamerica back on one of those rainy weekends
in February at the only theater that was showing it here in the
city, the Angelika downtown in the theater district where artsy
stuff is hip. Films that deal with this subject often suffer
from too much cliché, and too low a budget. But I think Boys
Don't Cry validated the genre after Hillary Swank won an Oscar
for her role in it. Landing Felicity Huffman to play the lead in
Transamerica gave it a big boost, but I was actually surprised
at how much I enjoyed the movie. She played her role with class,
capturing the poignancy and heart that I've seen in many of my
friends in similar circumstances. And, as a bonus, there are a
number of scenes that are laugh-out-load funny. Five theaters
here are showing it now. I recommend it.
And the last film, which I saw several months ago, is Crash.
The action keeps jumping around to different people, which is a
bit confusing for awhile, but if you stay with it, everything
ties together to make a point about the bigotry that we all have
within us, regardless of race, status, etc. I recommend this one
to anyone who hasn't seen it as well. It's out on video.
We'll see how the awards go this evening. |
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This winter weather is getting old, even if it only arrived a
week ago in these parts. I mean, two cold weekends in a row!
(Spoiled, I am.) I've mostly huddled inside, alternately at the
computer or watching snatches of the olympic games on the tube.
This time around, the games have seemed a bit dull, though I'm
not quite sure why. Perhaps it is the failure of some of the
media-anointed "stars" to live up the hype, or it may be that
knowing the outcome in advance, because of the broadcast delay,
removes the excitement. I suppose one could avoid seeing the
outcomes in advance, but you would pretty much have to avoid the
internet, newspapers, and any television news. I'm not going to
do that, and I doubt many others would.
There have been some highlights for me though, and oddly, they
aren't really about medal counts.
I had long ago started yawning at the sports commentators'
yapping about the "bad boy" image of US alpine skier Bode
Miller, and it doesn't make a lot of difference to me if he wins
a medal. When you watch the whole gang of skiers, the best in
the world, schuss down the mountain in succession, with times
that are less than a second apart, it feels a little ho-hum,
even for those of us who have experienced snow skiing firsthand,
and know how amazingly talented they are. But in Bode's
traditional go-for-broke approach to the Super-G, he smacked a
gate with his face, which would have pretty much wiped out
anyone else. He ended up with one ski turned backward, but
through sheer force of will and determination, he kept moving at
60 mph or so until he could get the other ski turned around.
This may be the most amazing skiing recovery I've ever seen. It
was much more impressive than someone winning a medal by 0.15
seconds.
The snowboarders have been refreshing, as much because they come
across as just kids having fun, some grooving to their i-pods
during competition in contrast to the athletes who dominate the
other sports, but only after many years of near masochistic
training regimens. One who missed a gold medal by showboating a
bit on the last jump seemed to pretty much take it in stride; I
mean if you aren't having fun, why do it?
And then there was the unusual appearance of an American whose
skin color didn't blend in with the ice and snow, snatching a
gold medal in speed skating. If you've ever been to a ski
resort, you can't help but notice that people of color are very
few and far between, but I wondered what he must have felt like
to be identified in the press as "a black," like this
overshadowed everything else about him. I remember back when
Tiger Woods burst onto the golf scene and became a phenomenon,
and there was a similar tendency, to use his skin color as a
noun, like this was the most important thing about him. In
Woods' case, it didn't seem to matter that he was of mixed
ethnicity, with a Thai mother; to the media, he was "a black."
Sports reporters must be taught to focus on any uniqueness in
order to get attention, but I keep thinking that some day,
they'll take a hint from Martin Luther King and identify an
athlete not by the color of his/her skin, but by the talent they
put on display.
It's still cold out this morning, so I think I'll curl up and
see if I can find some curling to watch...
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 The tomato plants I set out in pots on the balcony last April
didn't bear much fruit in July. By the time the plants started
blooming, the night time temperature was too warm, consistently
above 70F. For some reason, I kept watering the plants, even
though they wilted badly every time I would be away for several
days in a row. I almost pulled them up a couple of times,
thinking they must surely be dead.
The plants survived into the fall, and I thought I might coax
them into bearing a fall crop. I pruned a lot of the old growth,
and there was a little new growth and a few blooms. In
December I harvested two moderately sized tomatoes. Then
in January, I fertilized the plants and did a little more
pruning, and they fairly exploded with new growth.
Encouraged, we repotted the plants into large square planters to
give the roots some more soil for holding water on weekends when
I'm not in town. Now,
they're blooming like mad, and the blooms are turning into
little tomatoes. I had to bring the big pots in last
weekend when we had a cold front and a rare dip below freezing
overnight.
Unless I have some unforeseen crop failure (always possible in
the farming business), it looks like sometime in May I'll have a bumper crop
of new tomatoes on last year's plants. Who woulda thunkit?
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It seems I've been a slacker for a couple of months here at the
old web site; no updates or commentaries. Most of the idle time
I might have spent writing has been spent scanning 35mm film,
slides and negatives, instead. I've passed 5000 images, with
most of the slides and about half the negatives now digitized
for posterity. Having put all that effort into it, I installed a
DVD burner in my computer to make backups, since it would take
way too many CDs to do the job. I've been very pleased with the
quality from the Nikon 5000 ED film scanner, and it has been fun
to journey back in time to refresh all those memories of good
times.
So, time to catch up. Youngest daughter graduated from college
in December, and most of the family and several friends were
able to make the trip to yell for her when she walked across the
stage. The administrators have thrown in the towel on trying to
keep people quiet and dignified like they used to. She's already
working there in Austin, so M and I are now saving a lot for
retirement.
Since the California kids couldn't come home for Christmas, the
three of us in Texas flew out to Reno and drove to Lake Tahoe to
meet the other two and a friend of oldest daughter's the second week of January. In spite
of a few glitches, like trying to find the rental house, we
managed to have a nice week of skiing. Nobody got hurt, there
was plenty of snow, and the casinos didn't take much of our
money.
Last weekend M and I planted a couple of hundred bulbs, lilies and gladiolas, down at the lake to add some
color to the new retaining wall. Our upstream neighbors must
have got the fix-up bug from us, since they were having their
old retaining walls replaced as well. The downstream
neighbors did all their work a couple of years back, so the
neighborhood is starting to look halfway presentable.
We were both in the city this weekend, and the weather was nice
- highs in the 70s have been the pattern most of the winter, so
we got out for some bike riding both days. Lots of other people
had the same idea, whether they were golfing, running, or just
sitting out.
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