Adieu, Proof Positive!

Proof Positive R.I.P.

"It is customary for newspapers and news organizations to keep a "morgue", files of clippings of famous individuals, updated frequently, in the event that something should unexpectedly happen to them, they could report the event quickly and in great and accurate detail. This was in my "morgue".

I have been in the habit of scheduling many posts in advance, the Quote du jour, other regular features, primarily so that, when I was on the road or similarly disadvantaged, the effect to my readers would be to go unnoticed. As such, today, as I write this, I have quotes, music videos and features queued up, some of which will not publish for months. It has occurred to me, that were I to be hit by a bus, other than the diminishing output, some of you might not notice for a while that I was actually gone. The posts start getting farther and farther apart. Your comments go without response or comment. How rude!

So this is my "swan song". I shall write it and schedule it for some (hopefully) far off time and reschedule it again and again if necessary. But should Providence overtake me and I am unable to say goodbye to you, my friends and readers, I leave a "dead man's switch", a posthumous farewell to explain why the blog has run out of steam.

It will be because the steam has run out of the blogger.

I have enjoyed sharing my thoughts and words with you. The humor, the outrage, the sadness, the strengths that make up the human condition. Fare thee well, dear reader. Godspeed. Vaya con Dios. It's been fun! Don't cry for me, Sarge and Tina!"


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Actually, I have rescheduled this a number of times, over a number of years, but, as you have no doubt noticed, the blog is but a shadow of its former self. We hit our peak several years ago. All the red dots on the logo above were people visiting from every country on the planet! The blog was on an upward spiral, it looked like we might be going places, but then, there were fewer and fewer posts. Incidentally, this is blog post 18,093. Some of the people who worked with me moved on to other things. No regrets. It was fun while they were here.

But all good things must come to an end, and so does this blog, three months shy of its fifteenth blogiversary. Over nine million pageviews. I appreciate each and every one of you who contributed, who commented, who just showed up and read what we posted. Every one of you. I'm not sure exactly what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. The blog will remain up as long as Blogger chooses. Someone may stumble over a post or two. My email is on the sidebar if you want to get ahold of me. The "deadman switch" was unnecessary, as it turns out, but my gratitude remains. I will be withdrawing from most social media. Stone knives and bearskins. Oh, well! Live well and prosper, my friends. God bless you. And thanks for all the fish!

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Another Milestone

Hit nine million pageviews either last night or this morning. (Yea!) Been watching this tide coming in like a polar vortex storm. Figured it was going to hit soon. We made a bit of a to do when we hit five million. Six, seven and eight passed without any mention at all. I only mention it here, because frankly, I don't know that the blog is going to make it to March, for its next blogiversary. Details as they arrive.

Did my taxes tonight!

Okay, One Last TAVR Post!

One of the things I looked for earlier was a picture of the type of valve used in my TAVR procedure. I think this video illustrates it rather nicely, for those of you with any lingering curiosity as to what I just went through: Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) - Transfemoral Approach The procedure was last Thursday, June 10th. Recovery, apart from the incision sights, seemed darn near instantaneous. Although I have not restarted any strenuous activity, prior to the procedure, everything was strenuous. Walking from room to room might require hyperventilating prior to the move and immediately afterwards, accompanied with higher pulse and respiration. To be able to simply walk a half a block to pick up my mail, a two minute round trip, without having to stop and catch my breath once or twice in each direction is something I hope I will never take for granted again! I go in for my one week follow up tomorrow. 

 Thanks again for all your prayers and well wishes. In another place and time I might have been abandoned on an ice floe, and it would have been a sort of blessing. As it is, we'll save the ice for the tea and margaritas! (Suppose to hit triple digits here in California for the next four days. -Yikes!)

Thanks to Edwards Lifesciences LLC, for developing the technology that is making my life so much easier! 

I had been told several times that this valve would be MRI compatible. At first, I thought that meant there was no metal. Instead, there is Austenitic stainless steel, which contains nickel and is non-magnetic.
Otherwise, picture a small fragmentation grenade, implanted in your chest waiting for a strong enough magnetic field to violently pull it apart.
MRI compatible is fine with me!

Amazing Saran Wrap Substitute!

I am home again, having, I have been told, survived the week's earlier heart valve replacement procedure. I TOLD you the Lord wasn't finished with me yet! Of course this did not make it 100% certain, as I am not a prophet, and the last thing I was sure the Lord would not allow to come to pass was Joe Biden in the Oval Office! If you ain't 100%, you ain't a prophet of the Most High!

The Good news is I am home again and breathing much easier. Just to let you know HOW much better, let me tell you about my night in the hospital. Or rather, starting with the night before surgery, I got maybe two hours sleep. Not two consecutive hours sleep, two hours total. Everything I wanted to get done before going in was taking sooooo long. So, the night after surgery, the nurse wanted me to walk around the floof, just to demonstrate my mobility and balance, but I was so tired, after the nurse wandered off to do something, I just crawled into bed a little before nine o'clock.

Between nine and about 3 AM, nurses came in to awaken me five separate times. In the weeks prior to the surgery, many was the time I usually gave up trying to sleep around 3 AM because it was nigh impossible to lie down and breathe at the same time. The night after surgery, all five times I immediately rolled back over and went back to sleep, making it the best night's sleep I'd had in at least a month, even with the five interruptions. And when I sat up and took my first breath in the morning, my first thought was, "Wow. I didn't even have to think about that". How novel to just breathe in and breathe out without having to consider how difficult it was. 

A guy could get used to this! 

This is the "Saran Wrap" covering the incision on my wrist  that I'm assuming they use to guide the catheters. It's not as bad as it looks. This is the same spot they went in a couple of weeks ago for the cardiac cath test I had prior to the procedure. The bruising, which happens to me often, because of the blood thinners I take, was probably enhanced by whatever damage the first test made, basically in the same vein. The "Saran Wrap" is supposed to seal in icky things like blood and seal out icky things like germs. They want me to wear it like this for another 2-3 days. The gauze pad is kind of like a mood ring. If it turns bright red, it means you've started bleeding again. If it turns a kind of sickening yellowish green, it's likely infected. Modern medicine...who knew?

It's the only vaguely SFW photo you're going to get. The other two big incisions are crouch adjacent, and probably NSFW even if I wanted to share them. 

My number three son, number four child Joel gave me a lift home from the hospital. We had a nice visit. I hadn't really seen him or spoken to him much since Christmas, so that was a treat for me, catching each other up on what's been going on in the meantime. 

Even though the biggest problems of the last 6-18 months has been eliminated, I did notice getting winded a little easier than usual in a couple of instances. For now, I'm going with the assumption that it's simply the atrophy of muscles mostly unused because of the breathing difficulties. 

Doctor's orders are take a few days off to heal, then I start an inordinately high number of follow up visits ranging from a week to a year out from the surgery. I figure I will start a rehab exercise program starting around Monday, and I already had plans to go through another round of Keto weight loss this year.

Shorter update is, it feels good to simply move around without hyperventilating before and after every movement. I appreciate all the prayers and well wishes of my readers. You know who you are and so do I. Thank you.

The Lord has brought me safely through this procedure and it is my sincere belief that this humbling experience, a graduate class in humility, so to speak, will help shape and prepare me for some special task or ministry He is preparing me to do. Don't know what it is just yet, but I have I feeling I will require some of my newly experienced weakness and helplessness to fit me for the task.

Again, it's hard for me to convey just how much I appreciate your prayers or how much I believe they moved the King of Heaven to intervene on my behalf.  When the direction of where this next act in my life becomes more clear, I will share this with you my dear ones. Until then, keep the faith! And thanks again! 

An Update on "Something's Coming"

Soon. My next door neighbor should buy a lottery ticket. They changed the time of my surgery to where I no longer have to show up at the hospital at five, but at seven! Much less brutal. He doesn't know it yet!

Today is a very light schedule, which I have said, if I were thrown into the Octagon, with a three legged kitten, with two legs tied behind its back, I'd have to bet on the kitten!

Still I have my rides to and from the hospital lined up. Groceries in the pantry, carols at the spinet...think all my ducks are in a row.

Even though my expectations are to come through the procedure with flying colors, I don't want to be presumptuous. Small incision, large valve shoved into the heart, should be textbook. And the textbook says, no matter how simple the procedure, there's always a possibility of something going wrong.

Personally, I'm hoping for the "radioactive spider bite" thing going wrong over the "killer satellite crashes into hospital" thing, but my spirits are high.

For you praying folk, the operation is scheduled for roughly 9 AM Pacific time Thursday. One to two hours in surgery, and green Jell-o, with Hulk like properties for lunch! What could possible happen?

See you on the other side!

Something's Coming

West Side Story - Something's Coming

You know the old joke, "There's good news and bad news"? The good news is, my surgery is scheduled for June 10th. The bad news is, it's at 5AM. I've got to find a relative or friend willing to leave their house between 3AM and 4:30 for the trip in. Sounds exciting just thinking about it!
It won't be open heart surgery. We've all decided on the Whoopie Cushion Up The Leg procedure, which is about three hours shorter, doesn’t require general anesthesia, (which is good, because that's not my preferred method) and doesn't require a 6-8 week recovery time for one's chest bones to heal.
I have a preop meeting scheduled for Tuesday the 8th, when I will probably have to get yet another COVID test. -But the end is in sight!

Medical Update: Breaking News!

 

Okay, before we get into the medical update, a tiny pet peeve: Back before I pulled the plug on cable *cough* virtue signaling *cough*, Fox News would run this graphic at the top of nearly every hour, alerting you to "breaking news". Typically, it was the same news they broke at the top of the last hour, and the hour before that and the hour before that...virtually all day! 

This is my roundabout way of saying there is some news, but it's really not that earth shaking, it's just the way Fox opens every hour on their news channel! 

Started to post this yesterday, but yesterday was a REALLY rough day physically. And the news was not that earth shattering, so I figured it could wait. Sorry for the delay.

Had a really good chat with a cardiologist from the St. Joseph's Heart Valve unit. Some new information (to me) . I had been leaning towards the open heart option, as opposed to the TAVR: Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement , in which the new valve is inserted through a small incision in the leg. 

Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. I thought the open heart might provide two: the surgeon mentioned that with the open heart procedure, a small ablation could be made on the heart which could/should stop my A-fib, with its correspondingly higher risk of stroke. 

Second was the fear that if the aortic valve were already decreased in size, inserting another valve inside it would have, of necessity, decreased even further the area/diameter of the valve.

Dr. Waters, same name as my first GP in Stockton, back in the 60's (no relation), informed me that I was born with the largest size aortic valve. He may or may not have said you could see it from space! Therefore, they would be using the largest possible replacement valve. For all you folks saying I'm not "large hearted":

Neener, neener!

The other matter was that the ablation in question could also be performed, at a later time, through a transcatheter procedure, if needed.  The recovery time for even two transcatheter procedures pales before that of cracking open one's chest and fusing the bones back together. The downside is not having that really large scar to impress the ladies at the beach! 

Even in the unlikely eventuality of premature failure of the TAVR valve some years down the line, a new replacement valve could be inserted through the failed valve without removal. Even three TAVR procedures, one hour surgery versus four for open heart, one day hospital stay versus four, without the 6-8 week chest healing recovery, should be a walk in the park! 

The Heart Valve committee met after my appointment yesterday, and should be getting back to me soon. I believe their recommendation will be for TAVR, which I now agree with, and should be getting a schedule date perhaps as early as this afternoon. (Ever the optimist!) I will let you know as soon as I do. 

To use a sports analogy, we seem to be passing the clubhouse turn. The finish line is in sight. Thank you all for your prayers! 

Lessons in Humility

This post will be medical update adjacent. Even before I was a Dad, I would make the Dad joke that Humility was ...my best quality!  Nothing like being weaker than a kitten to keep you humble. I've been telling people that if you put me in 'the Octagon' with a three legged kitten, with two paws tied behind its back, bet on the kitten! 

Being forced to sit still for long periods of time, or lie flat or your back, gives rise to introspection. One is, that every surgery can have 'unseen complications', i.e. you could die. I used to goggle at the consent forms from my dentist, that one of the possible complications was 'death'. My GP asked me if I had any "trepidations" about the upcoming surgery? 

When you go from heavy breathing and increased heartrate from mild exertion, to heavy breathing and increased heartrate from lying down resting, one can see the sand slipping from the hourglass if nothing is done. 

I answered him with a paraphrase from Stonewall Jackson:

My religious beliefs teach me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time of my death. I do not concern myself with that but to be always ready whenever it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and all men would be equally brave.

But I also told him I didn't think God was finished with me yet.  We're told in Scripture, that man was created in the "image of God". I figure if God, then, is anything like me, he's not going to throw away a perfectly good white boy, that still has some usefulness in him. I have stacks of stuff  around the house that are used, but still good, not used up yet, too good to throw away, why shouldn't He?

And then I got to thinking how this latest period of weakness/mortality have changed my outlook, how much more sympathetic I am towards those undergoing illness, or weakness or suffering. How much more better fitted to minister to the broken, having been brought down about as low as one can physically go?

Over the years, I have filed away the knowledge that a portion of my current heart problem is likely congenital. From my birth, a piece of me was more prone to failure that that of my peers. So for 70 years, waiting in the wings, an unfinished melody, waiting patiently for its entrance.

But, the Lord knew me seventy times seventy times seventy times a thousand years ago, and determined exactly what kind of heart I would need to do His will. Having finally shaped me into the being He needed me to be, would He throw it all away now?

(Note to self: prepare sermon on "presumption" for next Sunday, just in case!)

So, very little trepidation. A desire to stay behind for now and do the Lord's will. Including getting those "stacks of stuff" taken care of. My housekeeping, which is 'casual' during the best of times had degraded over the last passing year, and it's a mess I do not wish to bequeath my next of kin.

So, for now, my expectation is to wake up in a hospital bed, with a very sore chest and an arm load of very excellent painkillers, which will not be quite adequate to the task. An additional six to eight weeks of being weak as a kitten, with stabs of pain when I forget just what my condition is, as I go about rebuilding my life.

And a thankfulness for every breath that I take, every sweet song that falls on my ear, and all of the friends and family I know and love. 

May God bless you, and don't wait to thank Him for His many blessings towards you. Like the old song goes, you don't know what you've got until you lose it. Start today. Carpe the diem. 

Medical Update

First of all, if you come here to the blog for politics, or humor or culture, PLEASE don't feel like you have to read this! I mean, this is life or death to me, and I'm bored with it! This just seems to be a handy forum for keeping my family and friends informed, without having to write all this down eight or ten times. Trust me. I don't HAVE any friends I like that much!

Had a visit with my GP today. It was an inauspicious start when the nurse tried five times with her machine and once with her stethoscope to take my blood pressure. I'm thinking that's how most of these zombie apocalypse movies start out:

"Doctor! That man over there! He has no pulse!!"

When the doc came in, he managed to find a BP, 90 over something, and another zombie apocalypse was averted!

Finished up the visit. There were a couple of sale items I wanted to grab from the supermarket down the street, so off I go.

Decided to call the doc back to go over one small detail, and ended up in my car sitting on hold for longer than I would have rested between errands. The significance of this in a moment.

I did not need to traverse the whole of the store to find what I needed. Still, I lost track of how many times I simply had to stop and rest my forehead on the shopping cart handle. And I physically sat down in the supermarket 3-4 times as well, pushing my cart, heavily laden (sarc) with 15 items or less.

To me, this is an indication that my condition, deteriorating since January, is still getting worse.

The good news: when I got home there was a voice mail to call April from the Heart Valve Clinic. I have an appointment for an interview and a CAT scan on Monday! 

"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

And a tentative meeting with the heart surgeon next Thursday. This gives me at least a week to "baby proof" the house:

"What do you mean you can't pick it up? It's only ten pounds, you big baby!" 

There is light at the end of the tunnel. My GP said no sky diving or marathons, so I want to get that in writing before he changes his mind. On Thursday, I imagine we will be setting the date for the surgery, so as always, I'll keep you posted!  - Mike 

With Apologies to Blanche DuBois...

Seems like just the other day, I was talking to someone on Twitter about how we never "meet cute" in a supermarket, the way it happens in the movies or on TV. Well, yesterday, on my way home from the cardiac surgeon's office, it almost happened to me!
It was in the soda aisle. My caffeinated brand of choice was on sale, must buy three. But they were packed in on the shelf tighter than Michael Moore's pants at an all you can eat buffet. I managed to pry one out and get it into the cart, but that was going to require a minute or two of restorative breathing, so there I was doubled over in the aisle, leaning on my cart, waiting for strength to try it again.

"Do you need any help?", a nice lady was asking me. I wasn't sure if she worked there or not, because, bent over like that, I could only see her from the waist down. I couldn't tell if she had a nametag, or was carrying an official clipboard or anything.
"No. I'm okay. Just need to catch my breath". I think she made a follow up inquiry. I'm not too sure. Moments like that I try to conserve oxygen for more vital functions than say, "hearing" or "comprehension"!
She came over and help put a couple more 12 packs in my cart. Just for reference, my M.O. for carrying soda consists of slipping two fingers each into two 12 packs and carry them from my car four at a time.

The Good Old Days!

By this time, I have straightened up and seen that she is not an employee, but a mere civilian like myself. We introduced ourselves. I'm Mike. She's "Cricket", like the insect. And she asked me if there was anything else she could do for me? I asked, "Are you a praying person?"

"Yes I am."

"Then you can pray for me." My expectation was that we would separate and at some future time, she would say something like, "And God please bless that poor man in the supermarket!" and that would be the end of it.

To my astonishment, she had an accomplice. She called to a lady down the aisle, "Mom!" and motioned her over. She introduced me, "Mom, this is Mike".

"Hi, Mike"

"Hi, Mom!"

Cricket explained to her mom that I had requested prayer, so her mom came over and took my hand in hers, threat of COVID and all, social distance be damned, and started praying for me right there in the middle of the soda aisle at Safeway!

I thinked them for their kindness and quickly made my way to the checkout, lest a revival meeting break out somewhere north of the frozen food. Unlike Blanche DuBois, I have seldom depended on the kindness of strangers. This was a very pleasant exception to the rule.

Alice in Guntherland

Today, I received my first big belly laugh of 2021, compliments of the California Department of Justice. They send me an email, which read in part:

The California Department of Justice has received your electronic application and will begin processing your submission.

(Emphasis mine.) Why is this so funny, you ask? I'll tell you the sad and bittersweet story...

California, in its infinite wisdom, decided to require background checks on ammunition purchase. IMHO, it is a waste of taxpayer money and police resources to run a background check on Uncle Hiram every time he buys a box of shells to hunt quail or rabbits. So, I determined that I would keep myself out of that system. I bought a few extra boxes of cartridges before the law took effect, and since I haven't gone shooting that much in recent years, I had no pressing need to restock.

Well, around the end of last September, I figured I needed a little more ammo. I applied online to the DOJ for the requisite background check, paid $19 for the privilege, and waited.

And waited. Turns out, I had filled out the wrong form, but no one bothered to mention that to me, so in December, after getting tired of waiting, I called the DOJ help line, which in itself is an experience. There is a very complicated phone tree to get through to an actual live human being, and if your experience is anything like mine, pack a lunch. I was on hold for hours. 

Finally I got through to someone who could help me. The person was very polite and knowledgeable and pointed me in the direction I needed to go. Fine. I filled out the new form, paid another $19, and waited.

And waited. Several times I even brought up the DOJ in my prayers, asking if it were possible for the Almighty to give them a slight nudge in my favor, but to no avail.

Finally, around the last week in January (this has been going on since September, remember), I decided that the way to get a background check performed was to purchase a new firearm. I didn't really need one, but I figured if I could find one that was either not too expensive or that I could conceivably have some use for, it would force the DOJ off the dime. 

I found a .22 revolver with a 16" barrel and a spare .22 Mag cylinder for around two hundred bucks, which is pretty cheap for a firearm these days! I ordered it online, they said they would ship it to my local store the first week of February. 

I went by the store to start the paperwork, which is voluminous, and while I was there at the counter, I saw a Springfield Arms AR in .308. "What's the story with that gun?" I asked.

The helpful lady behind the counter handed it to me, and told me the price. Trust me, it was NOT $200!

"Write this one up for me, too." I figured if I had to come back in ten days anyway, it was just as easy to pick up two guns as one! And then...I could maybe buy some ammunition, which was why I was doing this in the first place!

Came back in ten days, filled out more forms. They took my thumbprint about six more times. I should have asked him what they had done to cleanse that inkpad for COVID since the last guy was printed, but I didn't.

I picked up my two new guns and two boxes of cartridges. This store, whose ammo shelves were very nearly bare, limited purchases to two boxes a day! So much for "stocking up"!

So, Wednesday, I drove down to the aluminum/plastic recycling place, and I figured I'd stop by the gun shop along the way where I had purchased my Uberti Cattleman. (Dec. 2013) They had a LOT more ammo on the shelf, and when I asked them if they had any daily limitations, the friendly counter guy said "Ten boxes". 

"Ten boxes total?" I asked. 

"No, ten of any caliber."

Here. Take ALL my money! So I stocked up a little. Bought several hundred rounds consisting of several calibers. The brick of .22 LR was 300 rounds by itself! Bought a new pistol case to carry my ammo home and drove away a happy camper. 

Which brings us back to the DOJ, the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. I just bought two guns, several hundred rounds of ammunition from two different vendors and the DOJ will begin to process my background check.

Ain't government wonderful? 

The Other Gift of the Magi

From the archives:

It's nearly Christmas. No, not when I'm writing this, but when it will see the light of day. It's July and I'm slipping this into a time capsule for revival when the frost is on the bumpkins and the chestnuts are in the fire.

When I was a lad, about eight or nine, as I recall, twelve tops, we were living in southern Indiana. Jeffersonville. (Hopefully Thomas and not Davis, or the PC crowd will change it!) One year, my older brother and sister saw a design in some magazine for some handmade, do-it-yourself jewelry. Earrings, pins, necklaces... something like that. I vaguely remember they were made out of cork balls and a little bit of black velvet ribbon and pins through glass beads.
(Actually, they kind of put me in mind of those old WWII sea mines with all the spikes all over them, but very colorful and festive! )

I was the youngest of we three and not terrible suited for production. The big kids handled that. I was in sales. I was youngest and thereby the cutest of the bunch. (No brag, just fact!) So I was delegated to go door to door in the cold December winds and sell these bits of jewelry and perhaps some clumps of mistletoe as well, tied up with red curling ribbon.

Anyhow, out into the cruel December winter trudged I, with a sack or a wagon or some such, I don't recall, full of Christmacy merchandise to sell. 'Tis the season! My siblings had set the prices (marketing) and as I recall I did pretty well the first couple of houses. By the time I got to about the third door, the homeowner must have startled me, or I was nervous about talking to strangers, because when they opened the door they demanded "how much for the small jewelry?" For, you see, there were two sizes, a large and a small, appropriately priced, the larger sizes more than the smaller. Higher labor and material costs, don'tcha know?

For some reason, I got rattled and recited the large jewelry price for the smaller jewelry. Before I could correct myself, the homeowner agreed, paid the price and I was on my way before I fully realized what had happened. Our goods were underpriced for what the market would bear! Since I was the only member of the corporation onsite, I gave myself a small promotion to Joint marketing and Sales, and proceeded to quote the higher prices for the rest of the day.

Now as a kid, I was always good at math, and I knew how many units I had started out with and how many I had sold, and at what prices. So I subtracted the original price of the merchandise, and put the difference into pocket number one. The rest of the money went into pocket number two. Upon my return, cold, slightly frostbitten and hungry, I gave my siblings the entire contents of pocket number two.

They were delighted! Look how much money they had made, from the warmth and comfort of their own living room no less! As management, they then divided up the profits and gave me my share. An honest wage for an honest day's work! I'm sure they were thinking what a chump I was to work all day in the cold and how smart they were to have talked me into it!

I was then rewarded with a bonus for being 'Salesman of the Year', with the content of pocket number one. The awards ceremony was intimate, restricted solely to the sales force, without whom the company would not long survive.

I can't remember if I've ever told this story to my brother or sister. I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations has run out. Think I'll print this out and put it in their Christmas cards. If I live 'til New Years, I'll let you know how that worked out!

Down the Memory Hole

This post has nothing to do with politics or Joe Biden's less than agile mental abilities, because, like everything else in the universe, this is all about me!

I tell people "My memory is what I use to forget with." I stole that from somebody...can't remember who! Anyway, over the years I have misplaced a number of items, perhaps corresponding to the number of times I've moved cross country, but I can't blame it all on that. Some of it is due to my casual orgahnization skills and part of it is due to CRS. Since this blog is PG-13, if you don't know what that means, you'll just have to Google it.

Anyway, I started making a list of things I remember having and hadn't seen for a while. Today, I came across a really nice camera tucked away in a dresser drawer. I knew I still had the charger, because countless times, I had picked it up, recognized it for what it was and put it back down afgain because it wasn't what I needed at the moment. So, I looked in the last place I remembered it being and...no joy.
On the plus side, I found the charging cord for my phone's backup battery.
The box it came in says it has a standby time of "up to six months". Well, it had been years since I used it the last time we had a sudden power outage here in the golden, but sometimes dark, state of Califoirnia and it had power and to spare!

I also found the charger for my 20v cordless drill. The one I had been looking for the week before and ordered a relatively inexpensive replacement from Amazon. Now I have two. I also ordered a couple of replacement batteries they had on sale during Amazon Prime Day, so if I ever get really ambitious, I can charge two batteries at once!

Two steps forward, one step back!

Plus, while waiting for the battery to charge (which takes up to four hours), I've been doing a little online shopping, so I need to plunge my AMEx card into cold water to keep if I can keep it from melting down.
Mr. Trump, I'm doing what I can to single handedly stimulate the economy, but there's only so much a fella can do!
Update:
In addition to the camera I found in the dresser drawer, was a smaller pocket camera that I found in a desk drawer (I have a wealth of cameras!) on which I took pictures of my daughter's wedding back in 2013. Since the advent, ease and omnipresence of my cell phone camera, it has apparently laid there without a charge for the last seven years.

I charged it up over night, and, Mirable dictu, to my pleasant surprise, all the pictures were there, even one of my front yard which dated back to 2009.

I will copy those to my hard drive later today and distribute anything worth sharing.

Three Month Challenge update

In the interest of full disclosure, I did go to the grocery store today. I had a stopped up sink and I was out of drain cleaner. I was starting to see signs of primordial life there, so, I ventured out into the wide wide world. And I confess, I cheated, just a bit, on my three month pledge.

On my way to pick up what I needed, I passed a display of beautiful, ripe bananas. I had cut bananas out of my diet completely for the 6 -8 months I was on keto. Prior to that, I'd buy 2-3 every time I bought groceries. So, I picked up two (2) bananas. Out of habit, I cruised by the short code meat and seafood displays. There were several lovely slabs of fresh salmon for fifty cents on the dollar, and a couple of small tri tip roasts for 30% off.

I picked up one pkg. of salmon and two tritips. Figure dinner for a week. I'll add another week onto the end of my three month challenge to make up for bad (yet very thrifty) behavior.

The Rubicon Has Been Crossed!

Or, to change the metaphor, Cortez has burned his ships! Blogger has been threatening to impose its new and improved format upon its users, as early as a couple of months ago. Some of us were desperate clingers to the old format, but change has finally caught up to us and we must, at last, deal with the new format.

My first impression of the new system was to contemplate giving up blogging altogether. Watch this space.

I don't particularly like it, and in the following days, I will probably harangue Blogger with all the gory details.

But for now, I remain your humble servant in the trenches...

The Three Month Challenge

Frankly, I don't know if this is going to be interesting to anyone but me, so feel free to pass over this for something more interesting. The last post was a Vintage Babe. Always a good bet.

You're still here? Okay, here goes. I'm giving myself a three month challenge to live off nothing but what's in my cupboard, fridge or freezer for the next three months. No trips to the store. Nothing on the menu that isn't in the house already. I've never been a "prepper", more prepper lite. I felt it was prudent, whenever possible, to have enough supplies on hand to take you through power outages, storms, zombie apocalypses and the occasional Sadie Hawkins day.

Now through New Year's, no trips to the grocery store. I may need to pick up a few prescriptions between now and then. Of course, with my luck, there will be a meteor strike or somesuch on New Year's Eve, right when I run out of everything! But, I'm willing to take that chance.

I'll also be doing some soul searching during that time. On the one hand, I live in a great little house on a quiet little street in a state with the best climate in the world. If I stayed here until they carried me out in a box, it would be fine with me.

On the other hand, I live in a state with the worst political climate of all 50 states. Sometimes, in my mind, I have one foot out the door already. How does that song go? "Should I stay or should I go?"

So, I'm going to think about it and pray about it for the next three months. Certain investments I have made seem to indicate that I can pay off my mortgage next year, which will make it very cheap to live here...or give me a large cash out to move somewhere else. Both staying and going have their positives and their drawbacks. I guess it will probably hinge on what I plan to DO with the rest of my life. Can I do it here? Do I need to move?

Whatever will that be? I don't know. That's part of the challenge of the next three months. If I live another decade or two or three, what do I want to be doing , other than writing a blog and enjoying my monastic solitude?

I've been in the process of decluttering my life. I've given a lot of stuff away, some of which I thought would be a comfort to me in my retirement. I've got another half a dozen boxes set to go and more to follow after that.

Ideally, I'll have much of the remaining clutter cleaned up...in the next three months!

Decluttering means less stuff to pack... or more space and less clutter in living here. Win-win either way!

So, wish me luck. Let me know if you have any interest in progress reports. Like I say, this might not be interesting to anyone other than myself. But, some times I write simply to let the words leak out.

In (Faint) Praise of Dead Tree Papers

I was perusing my dead tree paper this AM, about two and a half pages from being done with it, when this article caught my eye:

Hyundai warns owners to park outside, recalls 180,000 SUVs

Hmm, says I to I. My Tucson is considered an SUV. Maybe I should have a look?

Hyundai is telling some SUV owners to park outdoors because an electrical short in a computer could cause vehicles to catch fire...
...recalling about 180,000 Tucson SUVs in the U.S. from 2019 through 2021 to fix the problem. The company says corrosion can cause a short circuit in defective anti-lock brake circuit boards that can cause a fire even if engines are off.

Let me see...2020 is between 2019 and 2021, right? Maybe I should read the whole thing? Concerned that I might have a potential car-be-que in my garage, I put off reading the rest of the paper until I could make an inquiry at the Hyundai website at the end of the article. They said they'd mail out recall notices to affected cars...sometime in October! Sheesh! Who wants to wait a month to see if you're driving a Roman candle?

So, I go to the website: "Enter your vin number to see if your vehicle is affected." Great! That should be right next to my desk, top file drawer in a folder marked Hyundai.


Okay. Not the first folder marked Hyundai. Probably this second one.






No. But in the vicinity of those two folders? Yes! Crumpled up in the hanging folder the first two were kept in. Note to self: a little housekeeping is required in those files!

Typed in the vin number...nada. My Hyundai is not affected by the recall. However, it IS 2020, if you should read "Local Blogger Dies in Fiery Conflagration", please contact a lawyer on my behalf!

In short, I would not have known of the potential recall except for its appearance in my local dead tree paper. Yes, the news is on the web, but only if I searched for it, and why would I search for it unless I had an inkling that my car would do a 'Mrs. O'Leary's cow' in my garage? Had my car been part of the recall, it might have been another month before I found out about it and then, maybe the hard way!

I have an almost daily discussion with myself whether or not the paper is worth what I'm paying for it.

Today, put one in the 'plus' column!

On the Back Roads of My Desk

I'm a scribbler. Tiny little scraps of paper, newspaper margins...anywhere there's a writing service, I jot myself notes. Then, I stick them in piles and sort through them periodically, like archeological digs, trying to fathom the meaning from the context and surrounding layer.

Yesterday, I found such a note with just two words: Genevieve Morton. Who in the world is Genevieve Morton? Why did I write this note? Maybe if I Google the name it will come to me.

Nope. But, just so it won't be a complete loss, this is what I found. You're welcome!

On a Somewhat Less than Cheerful Note

It is with great regret that I announce that John Cox will no longer be an active part of Proof Positive. We have all enjoyed John's whimsical look at the world through KiRKWOOD, and for a while, John and I partnered up to make political cartoons. I think I'll personally look back on those days as the Golden Age of Proof Positive. It's been a good seven year run.

John is still cartooning. He is currently partnered with Matt Margolis over at Margolis & Cox, where he still draws some of the finest political cartoons on the planet. John has told me countless times how much he enjoyed being a part of the Proof Positive team, but nothing good lasts forever. Trust me on this. As a final salute and thank you for all the great work he's done over here, at far less than minimum wage, I'd appreciate it if you left him a note in the comments and let him know how much you appreciated him while he was here. We will still keep a link to the work he did here over on the sidebar.

But it won't be the same. *Sigh*  Good luck to you John, in all your future endeavors. Fair winds and following seas.

Inkstainedly yours,
-Mike