Something
Posted January 31, 2010 – 9:05 am in: JournalSometimes it’s difficult to think of something to write about. Sometimes, something doesn’t just jump up and say, “This is what you want to write about today.” I have a cursory list of subject matter, based on stuff that interests me and the evolving issues taking place in the world. Often, a subject I think I’d like to write about is a dead issue by the time I get to it. So it falls off the list.
Sometimes, the something I start with in a piece of writing becomes something else entirely. If I don’t have a complete agenda or outline of my intentions, it’s very easy for me to become side-tracked or otherwise led astray so that my last paragraph or sentence has little, if anything, to do with the first. Then it’s time to reevaluate the beginning to see if something can be done to make the whole more satisfyingly of one mind, or one thrust.
It’s Sunday, and the temperature outside is 10 degrees Fahrenheit. At my house, when the temperature gets down near the single digits of F, our wooden deck starts popping. The pops can often be very loud, and have been known to rouse me from a sound sleep. It was a little unsettling the first winter here, hearing those strange protestations of the cold by an inanimate object. The deck isn’t the only indicator of weather around here. The pond behind our house also has a way of announcing weather changes. It is now completely iced over. As the temperature rises or drops throughout the day and night, the pond often moans and groans and explodes as the water and the ice fight for control. The level of noise on our pond is nowhere near the kind that occurs on the Great Lakes, but it is still pretty impressive.
I’m always amazed at how naturally defenseless humans are against the cold. Imagine us trying to cope with the frigid weather like the birds and the other animals do. With only their feathers or fur, they manage to survive outside through nights that are so cold and hostile that we can only imagine how awful it would be to be out there even in heavy coats and long underwear. Put yourself on a tree branch between dusk of one day and dawn of the next, perched there the entire time, with wind blowing at 10 mph out of the west and the temperature dropping gradually till it reaches, at it’s lowest point, 20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. How much sleeping do you think you could do? Birds can do such stuff even with their puny little bodies and their spindly little legs. We are so fragile.
But we are so smart. We have our insulated clothing to get us through short periods outside, and our homes to retreat to when the cold is too much to bear. When it’s warm outside, we can change into our summer clothing and crank up the air conditioner in the house. We can deal with just about anything Mother Nature throws at us. Just about anything, except for those horrendous but rare calamities like tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and, the rarest of rare, death by meteor.
Some of those natural disasters are as lethal for birds and animals as they are for us. Any kind of creature that was inside a building in Haiti several weeks ago, human or animal, would have been crushed by the falling buildings. Tornadoes and hurricanes and floods take tremendous tolls among all species of creatures. And if the actual event doesn’t do away with a particular animal, the subsequent change in environment might.
All this makes me appreciate quiet mornings when it’s cold outside and the gas and electric bills are paid, and there are no utility outages, and the radio is on to the station of my choice and I’m writing something that will end up in print whether a publisher likes it or not. I might be fragile, but in my own mind I’m making the most of my other natural tools. I’m playing the hand that evolution has dealt me.
I’m not going to go back and change the beginning of this spontaneous treatise to make it more whole or give it more thrust. Take it or leave it, what you see is what you get.
Peace.
No Comments | Tags:Fitness Update
Posted January 26, 2010 – 8:18 pm in: FitnessMy abs are tender this evening, as are a select variety of other muscles in various strategic places on my meager frame. I use the term “strategic” because I believe the discomfort I feel is part of a scheme concocted by Erin Long. That scheme, I hope, will result in greater strength and posture for me.
I didn’t have a problem this morning, but I’ll bet getting out of bed tomorrow will be a real challenge. I will moan and grunt and say vile things while trying to find the best method for twisting myself into the right package that will allow my launch from the bed with the least misery. I’ve done it before and, by golly, I can do it again.
There are several exercise I have problems completing. 1) On my stomach on the floor, legs lifted and arms lifted and acting like Superman. I cannot pick my arms up off the floor to make like Superman. Something about my shoulders creates an insurmountable obstacle to the successful performance of this exercise. Erin saw me struggling and gave me an alternative exercise to work around my shoulder problem. This has happened each time I try that one. 2) On my back on the floor, with legs “straight up” and then touching the feet with alternating hands while crunching. My problem here is that I cannot straighten my legs. I’m not sure of the reason, but think it has something to do with a lack of flexibility in the muscles. Perhaps more stretching would help. In the meantime, I’ll just bend my legs and look as silly as anyone can look while doing an exercise on your back with your legs sticking straight up.
For a minute last night, I thought I might puke. During another minute, I thought I might get dizzy. I did not puke, however, and I did not faint. The room was very warm and that contributed to my bouts of discomfort. Resting between sets helped, as did drinking water.
I am ever so much stronger today than I was yesterday, and I’ll be even stronger tomorrow.
I just hope I can get out of bed.
No Comments | Tags:The Novel
Posted January 21, 2010 – 9:49 pm in: StillwaterI ran a word count on my novel and today it is composed of 146,573 words, 655,933 characters (not counting spaces), 802,245 characters including spaces, and 11,606 lines. The “characters including spaces” number means that I hit 
802,245 keys on the computer to produce the text. This wasn’t done, however, until I had handwritten the entire novel on legal pads.
I accomplished the feat, for the most part, while working away from home for an extended period some years ago. I have revisited the document from time to time over the years, only to back away for one reason or another. I have a few major issues to resolve, including some minor inconsistencies and a few lead-ins that must be fulfilled or eliminated. I intend to submit the thing to a publisher or an agent after I complete the current round of editing.
I’ve enjoyed working through it again. I have actually laughed out loud reading some of the scenes. And when I laugh, it makes me think that I might really be able get it published some day. Reading other sections makes me wonder if a publisher could really be interested in such a story. Perhaps the right publisher will.
The novel begins in 1912 and ends in 1915. It’s written in first person, and is narrated by George Belt, a high school kid in the fictional town of Stillwater, Indiana. George and his friends have a lot of setbacks in their effort to play basketball in Northern Indiana. They have some success, too.
No Comments | Tags:Not My Erin Long
Posted January 19, 2010 – 5:34 am in: FitnessI was YouTubing the other day, and was thinking about my physical training at the same time. Suddenly, I wondered if my trainer, Erin Long of Kachmann Mind Body Institute, might have posted some physical training videos on YouTube. I searched for her name and BINGO! I clicked on the link and was taken to a video of Erin Long, Personal Trainer. Here is Erin Long in her video:
It’s really nice having video to watch to be reminded of certain exercises and their proper execution. The only problem here is that the Erin Long in this video IS NOT MY ERIN LONG. Well, Erin Long is not really MINE, but you know what I mean. The one in this video is not the one who is employed at Kachmann Mind Body Institute in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She is a counterfeit Erin Long, posing as a personal trainer in Florida. She has stolen my Erin Long’s name and profession, and is probably making big bucks down there in Florida, pretending that she is Erin Long and convincing unsuspecting clients that they are being trained by the real Erin Long. I’ve read about cases where people have stolen identities and used the name and credentials of others to their own benefit. Now I have a real-life example of such heinous behavior.
Whoever that red-haired young woman in the video is, I think she probably had a pretty good idea when she decided to post a video about personal training. It really is helpful to see someone actually performing exercises. It’s just too bad that it was done by an impostor.
I think the Erin Long I know should post a video titled “The Real Erin Long – Personal Trainer.” It would be great if we could get a real Internet battle going between the real Erin Long and the fake one in Florida. It could be the next Web sensation, and might even result in a reality show.
You just don’t know what you can believe on the Internet.
1 Comment | Tags:Avatar
Posted January 17, 2010 – 11:23 am in: JournalI saw the movie “Avatar” last night. It was almost impossible not to see it, what with all the commentary in the media and within the general public. I suppose that most of you reading this (probably thousands if not millions of people around the world) have seen the movie too, and you don’t really care what I have to say about it. 
If you fit that description, I’ll see you later.
If you haven’t seen it, you might be interested in my impressions. If not, I’ll see you later. If so, read on.
I saw the movie in 3D, meaning that I was treated to enhanced visual images that appear to have three dimensions. Facilitating the 3D effect required the wearing of special glasses, provided to moviegoers as we entered the theater. A container was provided after the movie for recycling the glasses.
I won’t go into detail concerning the plot, but will give the general outline. Humans attempt to mine precious metal from a faraway planet called Pandora, but to do so they meet resistance from the indigenous human-like creatures called Na’vi. A physically handicapped Marine named Jake Sully (actor Sam Worthington) is enlisted to interact with the Na’vi through the use of an “Avatar,” which is a creature cloned from the combined DNA of a human and a Na’vi. Humans can link with their Avatars via electronics and actually populate the bodies of their Avatars. Don’t worry, you’ll catch on quickly if you see the movie.
Jake Sully is a great protagonist. He has a disability, his attitude changes dramatically through the story, and he eventually takes control of a deteriorating predicament and saves the day. Jake falls in love with Neytiri (actor Zoe Saldana), a female Na’vi who saves Jake’s life in their first meeting when she drives off a pack of hungry dog-like creatures who wish to make a meal of Jake. At this point in the story, Jake is a bumbling novice in the jungles of Pandora. Neytiri tutors him and . . . well, you must see the movie yourself to see what sort of pupil Jake becomes.
Much has been made by critics about the political and sociological suggestions in the movie’s plot and theme. The Na’vi are deeply connected to their natural and pristine environment. Pandora is a beautiful place with gorgeous and outlandish plants and wildlife, as well as strange and fascinating geographical structures that are beyond description. Humans, for the most part, overlook the natural beauty of the place and have little in the way of empathy for the Na’vi. The goal is to find the valuable stuff under the surface of the planet, mine it, and make off with it. The Na’vi must get out of the way or be annihilated. By the end of the movie, it’s pretty easy to hate the humans, or at least hate what they represent.
Speaking of hate, I really hated the main antagonist, Miles Quaritch (actor Stephen Lang). He has everything that a fine protagonist must possess. He is strong, single-minded, annoying, outspoken, devious, inconsiderate of others, and totally despicable. He is one bad dude. No, I won’t tell you what happens to him, except to say that Neytiri has something to do with his comeuppance.
The graphical effects in the movie are unbelievably good. I swore that what I was seeing was real. The plants, the strange beasts, the insects, the geographical formations, and the Na’vi who lived within that world were, during the time I watched the movie, more real than the people sitting near me in the theater. If you would like to enter an alien world without traveling in suspended animation for years in a spaceship, go see “Avatar.” The scenery and biology of the movie alone is worth the ticket price.
Speaking of price, I paid $22 for two tickets to the 3D version at 7 p.m. A standard version is also available if you think you can survive without seeing the movie in 3D. Pay the extra couple of bucks and see it in 3D.
I saw families of 5 or 6 attending the movie. Just think what they had to pay, especially if they purchased food and drinks. I’m sure they will not regret having spent that much money. To keep a whole bunch of kids entranced for nearly three hours is worth quite a bit of cash. I didn’t hear any annoying kid noises during the movie. They were all busy tramping, swinging, and flying through the jungles of Pandora with Jake and Neytiri.
I’ve talked to a number of people who say that “Avatar” is the best movie they’ve ever seen, or that “Avatar” is now their favorite movie. I liked it too. Time will tell whether it eventually rises to the top in my subconscious ratings of all the movies I’ve ever seen. I find myself thinking about it quite a bit today. I’ll see whether I think about it in the next year or so as much as I think about the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, my current favorite movies of all time.
No Comments | Tags:Fitness Update
Posted January 12, 2010 – 10:44 pm in: FitnessAnother Monday night with Erin at Kachmann Mind Body Institute is responsible for the way I feel right now. Yes, I’m a bit tender here and there. Particularly here, and here, and over there. My abdominal muscles are touchy. My butt is sore. My legs protest when I bend down.
But really, considering all the exercises I’ve done and the calories I’ve burned, my “discomfort” (Erin’s word for pain) is minimal. I have not injured myself. I have not had to stop walking or biking or using my elliptical trainer because of any discomfort after the exercise sessions with Erin. My tennis elbow still hurts, but not any worse than it did before I started the exercises. My rotator cuff discomfort has not worsened either. I am no shorter now than I was several months ago. My arm muscles are bigger and more defined. My abs are stronger and, even though the rippling doesn’t show, I know they’re in there somewhere. I don’t yet have a yoga butt, but then I’m not doing yoga anyway so who cares.
I was diagnosed several weeks ago as being anemic. I do not suffer from any of the usual symptoms of that malady. I’m now taking iron tablets, prescribed by my physician. Perhaps that’s helping somehow, but how would I know if I didn’t feel as if I had a problem to begin with? I’ll just wait for the next blood test to see what’s up.
Sitting here, right now, I feel pretty good. I am a lean mean fitness machine, loaded for bear and without a care.
I just dread having to get up out of this chair.
No Comments | Tags:Aqua Indiana’s “Softer” Water
Posted January 11, 2010 – 6:57 am in: JournalWe are customers of Aqua Indiana, the providers of our water and sewer services. As Aqua’s customers, we closely follow any events and news items related to them. Last year, I read an article in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette about Aqua’s intention to install equipment at their water treatment facility that would soften the water.
This interested me, because Aqua’s water was very hard, meaning it contained a high proportion of various minerals. Anyone who has ever washed dishes and taken baths and showers with hard water, and then did the same things with softened water, understand the vast difference between the two states of water.
But there really isn’t a fine line between hard and soft water. The articles published about Aqua Indiana’s effort to soften our water estimated that their final soft water product would be harder, for example, than the water served up by the City of Fort Wayne to their residents. The main reason for the difference in the softness of water between the two providers is that Fort Wayne takes its water from rivers, whereas Aqua Indiana pumps its water out of wells. The water underground is much harder than the water flowing through rivers.
We received a letter recently from Aqua Indiana, telling us when to expect our water to be treated for hardness. After that date, I decided to put Aqua’s new “softer” water to the test by flipping the bypass switch on my water softener to see exactly what Aqua was talking about. For several weeks, we used the new softer water. The proof, so it is said, is in the pudding. Hardness numbers and proportions and comparisons are OK, but give me the product and let me try it myself.
It only took a couple of days before we had used up all remaining remnants of our softened water out of our water heater tank. When that happened, it became painfully obvious to us that Aqua’s new water wouldn’t do us much good, at least in regard to washing dishes, taking showers, and general household cleaning. The water wouldn’t “suds up” very well. When I brushed my teeth, little foam was generated during the process. Shaving didn’t work very well either. It took more shave cream to make enough lather to allow me to get a close shave. Showering was no fun. It took about twice as much soap to generate the suds we were used to. Then it took more water to rinse with, because the soap didn’t break down quickly during the rinsing process.
But wait. Aqua’s effort is not a total loss.
Our drinking water is not routed through our water softener. We use that water for drinking, cooking, and making coffee. Our Bunn coffee maker has a small, plastic sprayhead through which the hot water passes before inundating the 
coffee grounds. Before the Aqua water softening process was implemented, the small holes in that sprayhead would have to be de-limed at least once a week and sometimes more often. Now, I would say that we have to clean those little holes out about once every three weeks. So, you see, the millions of dollars Aqua spent on that new equipment did accomplish something positive.
According to the Journal-Gazette in an article on Sunday, January 10, water hardness is rated thus in parts per million of calcium and magnesium to water:
Less than 17.1 = Soft
17.1 to 60 = Slightly hard
60 to 120 = Moderately hard
120 to 180 = Hard
More than 180 = Very hard
If, as Aqua says, their water is now approximately in the 100 range, the water is high in the “moderately hard” range. The bottom line for me is that I still must soften our water in order to make it usable for anything other than drinking.
Now Aqua will submit a request to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission for a rate increase. Yes, they have already stated that they will do so. They also have stated that they expect to ask for another couple of dollars per month on each residential bill. I don’t think the change in my coffee pot cleaning schedule is worth a couple of dollars a month to me. I don’t expect to spend much less per year on softening our water, but I shall see as the year progresses. So I’ll reserve my final judgment till about this time next year.
In the meantime, I think Aqua Indiana should suck up the expense of softening our water and just say they are trying to make their customers happier and less antagonistic about last year’s 75% rate hike. That would be the nice thing to do. But Aqua is in business to make money, so they will not fail to pass along the expense of “softening” the water to us, and make a few extra bucks in the process.
No Comments | Tags:Fitness Update
Posted January 5, 2010 – 10:24 pm in: FitnessErin is back from vacation. She must have spent quite a few relaxing hours thinking of new tortures for her students. She showed us a few last night.
I won’t go into all the sordid details, but there were a few choice exercises that were particularly challenging. First of all, I selected 10 pound and 15 pound dumbbells to use for my exercises. I had used the 15 pounders last week also. Each time, it was because I didn’t find 12 pounders on the rack. Perhaps I’ll get used to the heavier weights. Maybe not.
For starters, Erin assigned us 20 standard pushups. We did 3 sets of those. I did the last 5 of the third set from my knees. I’m not as tough as I hoped. Among other exercises, we did 3 sets of 50-touch bicycles, 3 sets of 20 of a sort of reverse crunch on the exercise ball, 3 sets of 6 touches of a clockwise lunge (sorry, that’s the best short description I can come up with), and something where, on our bellies, we had to open our legs, lift them up off the floor, put them together, separate them, and return them to the floor. Each of those steps was done at Erin’s command, meaning we had to hold our legs in each position for a length of time. The rest of the evening was a blur. We were busy the entire time, huffing, puffing, and trying to make it to relaxation time. We all made it. Nobody even puked, as far as I know.
As difficult as some of these exercise evenings are, they always end with me feeling good and relaxed. I think that’s why I do it. I’m not trying to look like the guy in the photo on this page. I just want to feel good.
The winter weather has kept me off my bicycle, so I’ve been catching up on my New Yorker reading by spending plenty of time on my elliptical trainer. It’s in a storage room in the basement, back in a corner. I have a CD player and radio in that room along with a pretty tall stack of CDs. I also have a stack of New Yorkers. I’m working my way through them gradually. I’m now reading issues in January of 2009. I intend to catch up to the current month, hopefully by the start of bicycle season. I can get a lot of reading done while on my elliptical. This is one form of multitasking that I’m pretty good at.
I need to catch up on the reading before the winter weather breaks. I cannot read while riding a bike.
No Comments | Tags:Book Update #10
Posted January 4, 2010 – 7:26 am in: StillwaterI’m working this morning on Page 302 out of a total of 469 pages. The number of pages fluctuates as I perform the editing. Sometimes I add words and sentences and paragraphs. Other times, I delete stuff I’ve written and leave it out altogether or add replacement text.
The old tobacco barn on the grounds of Potter’s mill has been converted into Stillwater’s new basketball gymnasium. The building was donated by Clyde Potter. Minimal work was required to convert the building. The only disadvantage was its cross beams overhead. They were not quite high enough, and so the players had to adjust their shooting techniques and strategies to keep from hitting them.
George and Boony have been on the outs, so to speak, involved in a minor spat between old friends. A basketball shooting contest between the two didn’t help to bring the two back together. It did, however, magnify the importance of basketball in Stillwater as a form of recreation and entertainment for the townspeople. It looked as if the new gym was going to provide many fine opportunities for entertainment and athletic competition in years ahead.
But it was not meant to be. The new gymnasium has been torched and burned to the ground after the two perpetrators mugged George and Boony, leaving them unconscious on the grounds of Potter’s mill. Later, after the young men came to and (unaware of the plans of their attackers) returned to Boony’s house, a fire alarm was sounded and most of the town turned out to watch the gym burn. One of the arsonists was still there, his scorched bones framed within one of the windows. He had caught fire within the building and died trying to escape.
So now the second of Stillwater’s basketball gymnasiums has been eliminated. Stillwaters’ citizens are feeling pretty low right now. They can’t understand why someone would want to prevent the town from fielding a basketball team. Something is afoot, and some people suspect Ivan Stetler of having something to do with the continuing difficulties.
Perhaps Ivan, with George’s help, can convince the people of Stillwater that he is truly one of them and not the agent of a mysterious villain in Deer Lake.
No Comments | Tags:Drive-By Carnivores
Posted December 30, 2009 – 10:10 pm in: JournalYou vegans out there might want to avoid the intersection of Illinois Rd and Scott Rd in Fort Wayne. If you pass through that intersection (or, heaven forbid, have to stop for a red light there), you will most assuredly become a carnivore. 
I should qualify that statement. You will become a carnivore if Burger King is open and is actively grilling burgers. You doubt what I say? Well, just try it sometime. The smell of Burger King’s burgers, grilled over open flames, is enough to make me gag. Maybe you like that smell. Well, HAVE IT YOUR WAY.
I’m just saying that if you are a vegan, or vegetarian, or one who does not consume flesh, you will be consuming flesh at the corner of Illinois and Scott JUST BY BREATHING! Those greasy fumes from the burgers actually enter your lungs. They also lodge in your nose and throat, making their way eventually into your body. I’m not sure, but it’s possible you could inhale so much of that stuff it would clog up your pipes and you would end up permanently pickled or critically constipated.
I had to stop at that intersection several evenings ago. Almost instantly, my car was filled with greasy, slimy, burgery fumes. And that was with my windows up! By the time the light had changed to green, my clothes reeked of the stuff and I felt a sudden urge to have an angioscopy. No, I am not vegan. I just don’t like to have animal flesh foisted on me without my consent.
If you really do like the smell of scorched Burger King burgers, you are in luck. Not only are there 10 Burger Kings in the Fort Wayne area, but there is also another way to suck up those fumes. Believe it or not, Burger King actually sells a fragrance called “Flame” that is based on the smell of a Whopper. Now you can have it your way any time of day. And you don’t have to get in the car and drive to the nearest BK. How easy is that?
I wonder how many cows it takes to make up a batch of “Flame.”
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