I thought that I might talk a bit about a recent trip that we took, because it might give you some insights about vacation matters. I'll just ramble on and cover topics as I think of them.
Who? Elaine and I.
What? Spent 3 weeks in an ocean-front condo on the beach.
Where? Ocean City, Maryland.
When? Just after Labor Day.
Preparation: As you probably know already, women pack differently than men. Elaine filled 19 containers of various sizes. I filled 3. I do have to admit that Elaine's fills were mainly things that were needed for the condo: such as sheets, pillow cases, and non-perishable food. And she did also pack necessary clothes items.
My stuff (that I didn't forget) consisted of a few shirts, socks, and underwear, as well as my laptop, books, magazines and binoculars for watching the gulls.... girls?
Over the years, I have developed a check-list for myself, to make sure that I don't forget anything. (Elaine doesn't use one and thinks that my list is "just something a man would do.")
Unfortunately, the only thing about a checklist is that you must remember to find it and use it. (Remember the key point of every memory course... whatever you are looking for, is under something.. so pick it up!) I'll bet that my checklist is right underneath my missing hearing aid.
Moving in: The condo is on the third floor and can be reached by a little elevator. To get our 22 containers into the elevator, I had to make 14 trips, pushing a wheeled holder up a long ramp to get to the elevator. This was done at 11 pm in gale winds. Once in, after a lot of heavy breathing and gasping.. a warm beer helped calm me down a bit.
Since Elaine is in a wheelchair right now, beds and furniture had to be moved to accomodate and in so doing, a heavy picture popped off the wall right over my bed. It's a good thing that it happened then, because if I had had a nightmare and bumped the wall, that damned picture could have injured me. How would I have explained that to the doctor: "A picture flew off the wall and landed on my head." It was a picture of the Titanic..
Provender: Of course, what we brought with us in the way of food was minimal. We would buy the bulk of our food at the local supermarkets where prices are a bit higher than at home; for instance, on the main drag, a dozen medium eggs cost $2.59! Later, I found eggs at $1.59 a dozen at a supermarket on a road going out of town.
Happy Hair: Elaine discovered a store she was not familiar with: HarrisTeeter. They had a clearance table that had Elaine's favorite shampoo at $.99 a bottle. That was a fraction of its price in Baltimore. Elaine bought up all they had.
Broooom!! Our arrival was during "Bike Week" when 100,000 Harley Davidson riders descend upon Ocean City. This made driving our mini SUV a challenge and sleeping kind of trying.
Most of the bikers have been coming to OC for years and a lot of them look like me: chubby, bearded and old. While they cavorted with their fellow bikesters, their wives and girlfriends made the Beach Scene and helped give OC a new name: Cellulite City.
Buzzzzzzz! Since it wasn't safe to be on the road with the bikers, we did not go out to eat this week. Instead, we cooked a lot of good food right in the condo. However, since I do the cooking, smoke detectors feel that they have to harrass me. Just as it was in our Weller Way home, the detector is right near the stove, it has a tendency to go off to let me know that our food is ready.
Yummy stuff: When we did get to go out to restaurants, we went to some favorites:
Outback: Coconut shrimp!
Panda Buffet: Raw oysters and crab legs!
Crackerbarrel: Down home food!
Red Lobster: Unending shrimp!
We brought in a lot of food too:
Waterman's: A couple of dozen crabs!
Market: Big bag of steamed blue crab claws!
Greek Colonels: Creamed chipped beef!
FunFest: One week was FunFest Week in OC. This is when they put up monstrous tents containing lots and lots of crafty stuff for Elaine to buy. She bought some gifts, including some nice things for SuZee, our cat. She also bought a fancy (eternally sharp) knife for a bunch of money. Since I bad-mouthed the deal, she probably won't let me use it. The knife has a 50 year warranty.. neither she nor I will live that long. When I mentioned that to the 20 year old sales lady, she said that we could just pass it on to our heirs.
The only bad thing about FunFest, in my opinion, is that because noone can smoke in any of the tents, they congregate at the entrances... hundreds of them.. and blow smoke.
Entertainment?: Next to these tents are amusement areas. A ferris wheel, shooting galleries, Dodg-em Cars, Merry Go Rounds, and a weird and very scary piece of equipment that shoots people in little gondolas way up in the sky as though they are being shot by a massive rubber band.
The Hubcaps: Our favorite group, Carroll County's own Hubcaps was there inside the big tent one night. Tickets were $5 and $10. (Blood, Sweat and Tears was in the big tent another night, but they charged $20 and $49.) Elaine didn't want to get a ticket; instead, she sat near the back entrance and could see and hear them very well. She said that they did not do their usual schtick. That is probably because they would have to pay royalties.. and maybe they can get away with not paying them in Carroll County.
Delish: The food tent held many delicacies. One night, Elaine had a crab fluff and I had little fries and fish. Another night, we both had crab soup in bread bowls. Yingling beer was $3 for 10 ounces; light beer was $3 for 16 ounces. (At one time, Yingling was garbage beer and unsellable outside of Pottsville, PA.. now they advertise Nationwide and charge a lot more for a six-pack.) I think that IPA (India Pale Ale) is far and away the best beer made today. Much better than the versions made by the Brits years ago.
WalMart? What's a trip to OC without a visit to their WalMart store? This year, instead of counting the number of people with massive tatoos, I decided to count only those who did not have them. I only counted 5.. but they probably had theirs covered by their shirts.
What other WalMart can you go to where everybody is yelling at the top of their lungs? Strange people down there.
Home away from Home: We rent the condo from a good friend of ours, and we have to care for it as though it were our own home. So, when I fell asleep at the table, tipped it over and saw the glass of tomato juice sail through the air and onto the carpet, I became a little excited. Immediate action allowed us to get the spill completely cleaned up and undetectable.
Pills: As an old dude, I take a lot of medication. One of my pills is minute. A little yellow pill that blends in perfectly with the weaves of the carpet. (Yes, I spilled my pills.) I never did find 3 of them and hope that the vacuum cleaner got them before our host steps on the little squishy things.
Anger: Early one Sunday morning, we heard a knock on our door. It was a maintenance man who said that the guy in the condo under us was getting water into his bathroom. The maintenance man found that the spigot and faucets in the bathtub were loose, perhaps allowing some water to get in and spread down to his appartment. He said that he would caulk the area.
Meanwhile, a man with a very angry red face barged in and started yelling about his ceiling and put his face right up against mine. The last time an angry face got that close to me, it became dented in a few places and it almost happened again this time. However, I restrained myself. After caulking, the guy was getting more water, so it probably wasn't from this apartment at all.
Anyway, after this, I was hoping that we wouldn't have any other problems that would upset this guy.. guess what.. on the last day, while we were packing to leave, the toilet overflowed. Elaine and I spent a long time with a lot of towels getting the water off the floor.. and then we spent hours trying to unclog the drain. I didn't see the guy's red face again so I guess he stayed dry.
Oil Spill? When I went down to the beach to get some shells for Elaine, as I do each year, there were none. Where were the shells? The sand was flecked with black, just as I remember from when I was a kid during WWII. Tankers were sunk in the Atlantic by German submarines and spilled oil created tar in action with the sand.. and it spread out lightly over all after a while. This was like that.. and where were the shells? What is going on?
When we first got to OC, the surf was monstrous. Could it have squashed the shells?
Weather: Later, while remnants of hurricanes were storming up the Atlantic in the form of torrential rains, the weather channel kept showing Doppler Radar pictures of all this wetness coming up the coast. At one time, we had a Flash Flood Alert, a Heavy Rain Alert, a Tornado Watch and something else I can't remember. Over and over we were alerted about and shown pictures of the 12 inches of rain that we definitely would get. It never showed up. Not a drop until the last day that we were in OC.
The Last Day: As we battled with a rogue toilet, torrential rains buffeted OC. I made the 16 trips (remember, we made purchases) down the elevator and out into the storm and into the car. Everything got soaked, especially me. (I'm paying for it now with a very painful back and wheezing lungs.)
But, all in all, as usual, we had a great time. We were especially glad that my beautiful granddaughter, Bridget, was able to look after our cat, SuZee for the time that we were gone. SuZee told us that Bridget treated her very well.
.......................................................................................................................
Showing posts with label smoking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smoking. Show all posts
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Another dozen
01. Red Hat Club Ancest0r: In 1969, I established the Red Tie Club at the Social Security Administration. At our peak, we had 29 members who vowed that they would wear a red tie on Fridays. If not, they had to buy coffee and doughnuts for all of the other members. (Several guys would forget each week, but it wasn't very hard on the pocketbook because you could get a coffee and a sticky bun for 15 cents in those days.)
Remember.. this was 40 years ago and office workers had to wear neckties. This was a bad time for lungs because smoking was allowed everywhere. It always stunk to high heaven and one had to work in a haze of smog. However, we were used to it and didn't worry about it too much.
Once in the 1970's I decided that it was too stinky in my branch, so I shipped one of my smokiest sections into what I thought was a vacant storage room. That way, those guys could puff away to their heart's content without bothering anybody else. Or so I thought.
As soon as my guys were settled and began to light up, they noticed a rustling that seemed to be coming from what we thought were empty cartons piled up in the far corner of the room. It turned out to be the location of a programmer who hated smoking and who had made himself an office out of empty boxes. We had no idea he lived there. But, overwhelmed with the new smokiness, he soon moved out for parts unknown.
(Incidentally, this gentleman turned out to be the world's foremost expert on Esperanto, the international language. I've talked about this in other blogs.)
02. Big Bite! Scientists have found evidence of a giant Sperm Whale in the Australian desert. I have to check this out. The teeth are purported to be 4' long.. in a 50' body. Supposedly, this leviathan was not Mr. Niceguy. I believe that part of the discovery's name will honor Herman Melville (my hero.)
03. Watch out! The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech are working on a project to allow blind people to drive. There already are some assistive devices related to that:
DriveGrip.. vibrating gloves that signal when and where to turn.
AirPix.. Paper with holes through which compressed air is sent to inform a driver as to what is around the vehicle.
04. Directions: One true thing about the village I live in, there is only one road out. Ordinarily this doesn't pose a problem, but the other day a jogger hailed me and asked if he were going in the right direction to get out of the village. I said "no" and explained the layout to him. He said "thanks" and went off in the wrong direction. I accosted him and told him he was going in the wrong direction. He said "OK" and continued in the same wrong direction. I gave up. Elaine says "that is just like a man."
05. Spies? I wonder if any of my neighbors are Russian spies. If they have operatives planted in the US.. we must have some as well. Spygate? I guess it is just another source of income for American citizens. I wonder what secret documents they xeroxed or photographed from their time in the PTA or the local Baptist Church.
06. Abdication: Larry King is retiring after 25 years in the media. Will Jeraldo take his place? Maybe now he can become a Russian spy like his neighbors.
07. Damn Alkie Wino: I am under my cardiologist's orders to have two alcoholic beverages per day. It's supposed to help my heart. So, in a week, if I drink only beer.. there will be 14 bottles in my recycling bin. If wine, maybe 3 or 4 bottles of wine. Anyway, last week the recycling pickup didn't show up for a few days.. so the booze evidence increased until it looked like all we drink is alcoholic beverages. So what.. who cares what the neighbors think. Besides Lutherans like to drink beer.
Once, on vacation in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, I was out blogging on recycling pickup day and I noticed that every bin was filled with empty wine bottles of a certain fairly expensive red wine type. At first I thought that the liquor store must have had a fantastic sale. Then I thought that this many people can't all drink the same kind of wine. Then I realized that this was probably all from the same wino. His bin was full, so he decided to fill up his neighbors' bins. .. ok.. like I said before.. who cares?
08. Great idea: Someone is marketing Bridal Diapers. Who needs them? I guess it depends on how strong a Bride's bladder is.
09. Style: An upbeat 69 year old Wonder Woman will now dress in stretch pants. About time.
10. Baltimorese: John Goodspeed of the Baltimore Sun published a dictionary of the dialect spoken in Baltimore, Maryland. Look at a few of the entries:
Clays: clothes
Everythink: everything
Flares: flowers
Koor: car
Nayo: no
Urshter: oyster
Zinc: sink
11. Job openings: Britain is advertising for Bikini mud wrestlers.
12. Hairy lip? A German study has found that female fish like male fish best if they have a kind of mustache. Clark Gablefish.
...............................................................................................
Remember.. this was 40 years ago and office workers had to wear neckties. This was a bad time for lungs because smoking was allowed everywhere. It always stunk to high heaven and one had to work in a haze of smog. However, we were used to it and didn't worry about it too much.
Once in the 1970's I decided that it was too stinky in my branch, so I shipped one of my smokiest sections into what I thought was a vacant storage room. That way, those guys could puff away to their heart's content without bothering anybody else. Or so I thought.
As soon as my guys were settled and began to light up, they noticed a rustling that seemed to be coming from what we thought were empty cartons piled up in the far corner of the room. It turned out to be the location of a programmer who hated smoking and who had made himself an office out of empty boxes. We had no idea he lived there. But, overwhelmed with the new smokiness, he soon moved out for parts unknown.
(Incidentally, this gentleman turned out to be the world's foremost expert on Esperanto, the international language. I've talked about this in other blogs.)
02. Big Bite! Scientists have found evidence of a giant Sperm Whale in the Australian desert. I have to check this out. The teeth are purported to be 4' long.. in a 50' body. Supposedly, this leviathan was not Mr. Niceguy. I believe that part of the discovery's name will honor Herman Melville (my hero.)
03. Watch out! The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech are working on a project to allow blind people to drive. There already are some assistive devices related to that:
DriveGrip.. vibrating gloves that signal when and where to turn.
AirPix.. Paper with holes through which compressed air is sent to inform a driver as to what is around the vehicle.
04. Directions: One true thing about the village I live in, there is only one road out. Ordinarily this doesn't pose a problem, but the other day a jogger hailed me and asked if he were going in the right direction to get out of the village. I said "no" and explained the layout to him. He said "thanks" and went off in the wrong direction. I accosted him and told him he was going in the wrong direction. He said "OK" and continued in the same wrong direction. I gave up. Elaine says "that is just like a man."
05. Spies? I wonder if any of my neighbors are Russian spies. If they have operatives planted in the US.. we must have some as well. Spygate? I guess it is just another source of income for American citizens. I wonder what secret documents they xeroxed or photographed from their time in the PTA or the local Baptist Church.
06. Abdication: Larry King is retiring after 25 years in the media. Will Jeraldo take his place? Maybe now he can become a Russian spy like his neighbors.
07. Damn Alkie Wino: I am under my cardiologist's orders to have two alcoholic beverages per day. It's supposed to help my heart. So, in a week, if I drink only beer.. there will be 14 bottles in my recycling bin. If wine, maybe 3 or 4 bottles of wine. Anyway, last week the recycling pickup didn't show up for a few days.. so the booze evidence increased until it looked like all we drink is alcoholic beverages. So what.. who cares what the neighbors think. Besides Lutherans like to drink beer.
Once, on vacation in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, I was out blogging on recycling pickup day and I noticed that every bin was filled with empty wine bottles of a certain fairly expensive red wine type. At first I thought that the liquor store must have had a fantastic sale. Then I thought that this many people can't all drink the same kind of wine. Then I realized that this was probably all from the same wino. His bin was full, so he decided to fill up his neighbors' bins. .. ok.. like I said before.. who cares?
08. Great idea: Someone is marketing Bridal Diapers. Who needs them? I guess it depends on how strong a Bride's bladder is.
09. Style: An upbeat 69 year old Wonder Woman will now dress in stretch pants. About time.
10. Baltimorese: John Goodspeed of the Baltimore Sun published a dictionary of the dialect spoken in Baltimore, Maryland. Look at a few of the entries:
Clays: clothes
Everythink: everything
Flares: flowers
Koor: car
Nayo: no
Urshter: oyster
Zinc: sink
11. Job openings: Britain is advertising for Bikini mud wrestlers.
12. Hairy lip? A German study has found that female fish like male fish best if they have a kind of mustache. Clark Gablefish.
...............................................................................................
Friday, March 05, 2010
Weekly Dozen @ March 5, 2010
Some of these items come from me, some from newspapers, and some from The Week magazine, a wonderful sheet that hits all sides of a story.
01. Famous Book Sale. The well-known Smith College in Massachusetts has an active alumni group in Maryland. They put on an annual book sale that is a book-lover's dream. I first discovered the sale while I was waiting for my first daughter to be born at a Baltimore hospital. (I won't tell you how many years ago that was because maybe my daughter doesn't want you to know how old she is.)
Over the years, I purchased thousands of books for my collection, mainly at their sales. (They sell gently-used books on any and all subjects.) When we made plans to move to our current location, I realized that I could not take all of these books with me, so I boxed them up, knowing that I could always donate them to the current year's sale. However, when the time came, I was told that they already had so many books to sell, they had no place to put my 118 boxes of books. (I have already written how I finally got rid of the books, so, if you want to know, call me up or search my blogs for Salvation Army.)
Anyway, this year's sale is the 52nd annual sale. It will take place on April 9-11 at the exhibition hall of the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium, MD. Apparently that is the only site big enough to hold all of the books. I guarantee that if you go, you will get hooked, and start to amass your own gigantic library of great books. (... at cheap prices)
02. Intelligent Billing: Elaine got a bill today from a well-known company. It was a bill for $0.00 ! A nasty note was attached, saying, in effect, "If we do not receive your payment by March 31st, you will be required to pay a $0.00 late fee!"
03. Tricky Timing: The usually completely accurate magazine I mentioned above, gave the following information: "2010 is the year of Mark Twain, ... it marks the 100th anniversary of the American author's birth, and the 125th of the publication of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn..." He sure was a darn good writer to get stuff published even before he was born.
03 1/2. Telephone Help Desk: At today's AARP meeting, I was able to give my stand-up routine about a telephone call I made a while ago.
I called the 800 # for a well-known Internet provider. I had a problem and was not able to access the web. The call went something like this:
"Allo, wat is your name?"
"Joseph Vaughan"
"Allo, Yosef, wat is your broblem?"
"I cannot access the Internet."
"Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I do not understand gable."
"May I speak to your supervisor?"
"May I help you?"
"Yes, I cannot access the internet."
"Wat is your name, sir?"
"Joseph Vaughan."
"OK, Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I don't know wat is gable."
"It's an electric line running into my house, like a telephone line."
"OK, Yosef, I will look that up. Where do you live?"
"I live in the U.S. In Maryland."
"I don't know wat is merrylend."
"Maryland is a State in the U.S."
"I'm sorry, Yosef, but I ave no record of merrylend."
"Do you have Massachusetts?"
"Yes, I see that, but no merrylend."
"Oh.. to hell with it! Goodbye!"
After explaining my frustrating experience to a County administrator, I was given a local number for the company involved. I called the number and a guy said: "Hey, how ya doin? What can I do for you?"
I told him my problem, he went away for one minute, came back and said, "is it ok now?" I checked, and it was. Total time for call and fix.. about two minutes.
04. Traffic cameras: We've talked before about speed cameras and red-light cameras.. now we have "rolling right turn" cameras. In Los Angeles, there now is a fine of over $400 for doing a rolling right turn. This must be a real money-maker, because it's hard for me to believe that the word has gotten out that you must make a full stop before making a right turn on a red light.
05. Air Traffic Controllers: They are getting younger and younger. Check out the youngster who gave instructions to several planes recently at the JFK Airport.(I know that President Reagan fired a lot of controllers years ago, but I didn't know that the Government had dropped the age requirement so they could hire more of them.)
06. Oink:Oink - This is the tenth anniversary of the successful cloning of a pig. (Name of Deli?)
07. IQ: An Israeli study has found that the lower a person's IQ is, the more likely that person is a heavy smoker. (Us former-smoker now-smart guys knew that already.)
08. Brushes: A lady named Dawn Stephens has invented an all-in-one toilet-bowl-cleaning brush. (My grandfather, Arthur Stephens Vaughan, in 1900, invented the all-in-one shoe brush, consisting of a "polish dauber" on the end of a handled "polishing brush.") If I could figure out how to put pictures on this blog, I would show what his prototype looks like today. I have it on display in my den.
09. Cursing: Nepal has an annual "cursing festival". One of the curses I like best is: "May your buffaloes all die of diarrhea!"
10. Fusion? Bloom Energy says they have developed a fuel cell that can generate energy without going through the process of combustion. More power to them!
11. Crabby? Marylanders love their crabs, but sometimes they get careless about getting them. Recently, Maryland environmental police found and pulled up over 1,500 abandoned or lost crab pots from inlets to the Chesapeake Bay. These pots endanger fish and crabs. I wonder what they did with any crabs (or their skeletons) found in these pots.
12. Exercise? I read that there is an aerobic exercise called "spinning"... please don't tell me what that is, I want to conjure up an image of this exercise... in my mind's eye.. just as I did years ago listening to the radio and visualizing the scene being described. Visualization is a great exercise for the brain.
... enough!
01. Famous Book Sale. The well-known Smith College in Massachusetts has an active alumni group in Maryland. They put on an annual book sale that is a book-lover's dream. I first discovered the sale while I was waiting for my first daughter to be born at a Baltimore hospital. (I won't tell you how many years ago that was because maybe my daughter doesn't want you to know how old she is.)
Over the years, I purchased thousands of books for my collection, mainly at their sales. (They sell gently-used books on any and all subjects.) When we made plans to move to our current location, I realized that I could not take all of these books with me, so I boxed them up, knowing that I could always donate them to the current year's sale. However, when the time came, I was told that they already had so many books to sell, they had no place to put my 118 boxes of books. (I have already written how I finally got rid of the books, so, if you want to know, call me up or search my blogs for Salvation Army.)
Anyway, this year's sale is the 52nd annual sale. It will take place on April 9-11 at the exhibition hall of the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium, MD. Apparently that is the only site big enough to hold all of the books. I guarantee that if you go, you will get hooked, and start to amass your own gigantic library of great books. (... at cheap prices)
02. Intelligent Billing: Elaine got a bill today from a well-known company. It was a bill for $0.00 ! A nasty note was attached, saying, in effect, "If we do not receive your payment by March 31st, you will be required to pay a $0.00 late fee!"
03. Tricky Timing: The usually completely accurate magazine I mentioned above, gave the following information: "2010 is the year of Mark Twain, ... it marks the 100th anniversary of the American author's birth, and the 125th of the publication of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn..." He sure was a darn good writer to get stuff published even before he was born.
03 1/2. Telephone Help Desk: At today's AARP meeting, I was able to give my stand-up routine about a telephone call I made a while ago.
I called the 800 # for a well-known Internet provider. I had a problem and was not able to access the web. The call went something like this:
"Allo, wat is your name?"
"Joseph Vaughan"
"Allo, Yosef, wat is your broblem?"
"I cannot access the Internet."
"Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I do not understand gable."
"May I speak to your supervisor?"
"May I help you?"
"Yes, I cannot access the internet."
"Wat is your name, sir?"
"Joseph Vaughan."
"OK, Yosef, do you ave dial-up or dsl?"
"I have cable."
"Yosef, wat is gable? I don't know wat is gable."
"It's an electric line running into my house, like a telephone line."
"OK, Yosef, I will look that up. Where do you live?"
"I live in the U.S. In Maryland."
"I don't know wat is merrylend."
"Maryland is a State in the U.S."
"I'm sorry, Yosef, but I ave no record of merrylend."
"Do you have Massachusetts?"
"Yes, I see that, but no merrylend."
"Oh.. to hell with it! Goodbye!"
After explaining my frustrating experience to a County administrator, I was given a local number for the company involved. I called the number and a guy said: "Hey, how ya doin? What can I do for you?"
I told him my problem, he went away for one minute, came back and said, "is it ok now?" I checked, and it was. Total time for call and fix.. about two minutes.
04. Traffic cameras: We've talked before about speed cameras and red-light cameras.. now we have "rolling right turn" cameras. In Los Angeles, there now is a fine of over $400 for doing a rolling right turn. This must be a real money-maker, because it's hard for me to believe that the word has gotten out that you must make a full stop before making a right turn on a red light.
05. Air Traffic Controllers: They are getting younger and younger. Check out the youngster who gave instructions to several planes recently at the JFK Airport.(I know that President Reagan fired a lot of controllers years ago, but I didn't know that the Government had dropped the age requirement so they could hire more of them.)
06. Oink:Oink - This is the tenth anniversary of the successful cloning of a pig. (Name of Deli?)
07. IQ: An Israeli study has found that the lower a person's IQ is, the more likely that person is a heavy smoker. (Us former-smoker now-smart guys knew that already.)
08. Brushes: A lady named Dawn Stephens has invented an all-in-one toilet-bowl-cleaning brush. (My grandfather, Arthur Stephens Vaughan, in 1900, invented the all-in-one shoe brush, consisting of a "polish dauber" on the end of a handled "polishing brush.") If I could figure out how to put pictures on this blog, I would show what his prototype looks like today. I have it on display in my den.
09. Cursing: Nepal has an annual "cursing festival". One of the curses I like best is: "May your buffaloes all die of diarrhea!"
10. Fusion? Bloom Energy says they have developed a fuel cell that can generate energy without going through the process of combustion. More power to them!
11. Crabby? Marylanders love their crabs, but sometimes they get careless about getting them. Recently, Maryland environmental police found and pulled up over 1,500 abandoned or lost crab pots from inlets to the Chesapeake Bay. These pots endanger fish and crabs. I wonder what they did with any crabs (or their skeletons) found in these pots.
12. Exercise? I read that there is an aerobic exercise called "spinning"... please don't tell me what that is, I want to conjure up an image of this exercise... in my mind's eye.. just as I did years ago listening to the radio and visualizing the scene being described. Visualization is a great exercise for the brain.
... enough!
Monday, December 21, 2009
A Man's Castle.. and other Items
A young gentleman in Virginia thought that it was ok to walk around inside his own home in the nude. Apparently, a judge thought differently and convicted him of indecent exposure. Two women spied him through his picture window and had him arrested. I thought that one could do what one wanted to in one's own home.. apparently not in Virginia.
I'm reminded of a case from a few years ago. A woman complained that a man was walking around his yard in the nude. The man told that judge that he had a 10 foot privacy fence around his yard.. so how could she have seen him. When the judge asked her this question.. she said that he was directly in view when she climbed the six foot ladder she had placed next to his fence.
Once, my late wife and I carried a message to a brother of one of her friends, who was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. At the time, he was visiting one of the other musicians at a cottage near Clarks Cove in New Bedford, Massachusetts. When we knocked at the door, we were escorted in by a nude person and observed several persons in their birthday suits playing a Mozart symphony. This cottage also had a ten foot high fence for privacy. Being New Englanders, we were, of course, shocked.. but this was a private matter and we never would have thought about reporting to the police...besides, we liked the music.
And here are some quick takes to make you think.
01. Singer Andy Williams, beloved by us old-timers, once dubbed a movie song for Lauren Bacall when he was 14 years old. (He has written a new book that is highly recommended, especially for one part that concerns a trip to Oslo. The title is: Moonriver and Me.)
02. A cross-dresser was recently arrested for stealing a $2,000 Chanel dress.
03. North Koreans are being ordered to keep their hair neat and short. No mullets! (But just look at the leader Kim's hairdo!)
04. A study reports that broccoli sprouts may protect against stomach cancer.
05. A German study says that staring at female breasts increases longevity. Oglers in the study had lower blood pressure.
06. Another study showed that women can remember their first pair of shoes, but maybe not their first kiss.
07. Regardless of the extent to which one zooms in on a Mandelbrot Set there is always additional detail to see. (Check it out on the Internet.)
08. Oral Roberts died last week. He was 91. (No comment, except to say Rest in Peace.)
09. Prince Phillip insulted a blind soldier about his necktie. (Apparently, the Prince often speaks without thinking, or so I've heard.)
10. Australian news says that turtle farts are causing an overflow condition in a tank in a public aquarium.
11. During recent pie-eating championships, the contestants were tested for gravy, cough syrup and doping in general. ( Gravy and cough syrup make the gullet greasy and one can then eat more pie.)
Enough!
..............
I'm reminded of a case from a few years ago. A woman complained that a man was walking around his yard in the nude. The man told that judge that he had a 10 foot privacy fence around his yard.. so how could she have seen him. When the judge asked her this question.. she said that he was directly in view when she climbed the six foot ladder she had placed next to his fence.
Once, my late wife and I carried a message to a brother of one of her friends, who was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. At the time, he was visiting one of the other musicians at a cottage near Clarks Cove in New Bedford, Massachusetts. When we knocked at the door, we were escorted in by a nude person and observed several persons in their birthday suits playing a Mozart symphony. This cottage also had a ten foot high fence for privacy. Being New Englanders, we were, of course, shocked.. but this was a private matter and we never would have thought about reporting to the police...besides, we liked the music.
And here are some quick takes to make you think.
01. Singer Andy Williams, beloved by us old-timers, once dubbed a movie song for Lauren Bacall when he was 14 years old. (He has written a new book that is highly recommended, especially for one part that concerns a trip to Oslo. The title is: Moonriver and Me.)
02. A cross-dresser was recently arrested for stealing a $2,000 Chanel dress.
03. North Koreans are being ordered to keep their hair neat and short. No mullets! (But just look at the leader Kim's hairdo!)
04. A study reports that broccoli sprouts may protect against stomach cancer.
05. A German study says that staring at female breasts increases longevity. Oglers in the study had lower blood pressure.
06. Another study showed that women can remember their first pair of shoes, but maybe not their first kiss.
07. Regardless of the extent to which one zooms in on a Mandelbrot Set there is always additional detail to see. (Check it out on the Internet.)
08. Oral Roberts died last week. He was 91. (No comment, except to say Rest in Peace.)
09. Prince Phillip insulted a blind soldier about his necktie. (Apparently, the Prince often speaks without thinking, or so I've heard.)
10. Australian news says that turtle farts are causing an overflow condition in a tank in a public aquarium.
11. During recent pie-eating championships, the contestants were tested for gravy, cough syrup and doping in general. ( Gravy and cough syrup make the gullet greasy and one can then eat more pie.)
Enough!
..............
Monday, November 02, 2009
Catching up on the news.
I've been tied up for some time planning a conference. Now that it is over, I can concentrate on other things and maybe catch up on the news. Reading my favorite magazine The Week for November 6, 2009, and watching a little TV, I found the following news items to be quite interesting:
01. GOLF. There now is an 850 mile long golf course in Australia. Par 71. (Golfers have to be wary of wombat holes.)
02. SPY. Who would have thought that Fidel Castro's sister would have been a spy for the CIA? (Mr. Cheney may not know that she "outed" herself.)
03. RATINGS. FOX News is apparently enjoying being called "a wing of the Republican Party.
04. SEX. The "US Federales" have captured 700 bad people across the country in three days. This included a lot of alleged pimps engaged in child prostitution. Some child prostitutes are as young as ten!
05. SWINE FLU. I read that some "shock" radio persons are spreading rumors that the H1N1 vaccine "is tainted with antifreeze" as part of a plot by the Government to kill Americans.
This is extremely ridiculous and irresponsible. Some people who should get the vaccine, may not get it because of this misinformation. People need to take this situation seriously and make rational decisions about the vaccine. During the Flu Pandemic of many years ago, my Grandfather served his community as a volunteer nurse. In that community, nearly every family lost a member. There was no vaccine against the flu then. (Luckily, none of his 15 children got the flu bad enough to die from it.)
06. RODENT. Once again, a small animal has panicked lots of great big humans. Three hundred people were delayed for three hours while their airplane to London was "de-miced".
07. SUICIDE Epidemic. Palo Alto, California, is having a problem with teen suicides. Four students from the same high school have stepped in front of commuter trains on purpose. Eight more have been prevented from doing so. Is this the result of "ennui" for living in such a wealthy town?
08. FLY-PAPER?. A Florida man wore a "defective" pair of underwear for two weeks and claimed that the fly flap rubbed his genitals like sand-paper. He sued for compensation. Thank goodness the judge threw this one out.
09. WATCH OUT FOR STRANGE VEHICLES. If you travel in Minnesota, watch out for a drunk guy driving a motorized recliner with a built-in stereo set.
10. BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE: If you travel in Dallas, be careful, police are ticketing motorists for being "non-English-speaking drivers." George Bernard Shaw was fond of saying that Americans haven't spoken the English language for years.
11. WHERE'S THE BEEF? The owner of the three McDonald restaurants in Iceland is closing them down because the current cost of importing ingredients would cause him to have to charge the equivalent of $7 for a Big Mac, apparently too many KRONA for folks to pay.
12. ARE YOU A NONE? A study found that 14 million Americans have no religious affiliation.. they are called "nones". Some of them believe in God, some are atheists, some agnostics, and some find labels unimportant.
13. ENDANGERED SPECIES. Several Canadian provinces have banned smoking in both public and private places, even in cars and apartment buildings! However, crackheads, who have a disease called addiction, are exempted and will have medical places where they can legally "inhale"!
14. PIE IN THE FACE. Soupy Sales died last week. He was 83. His claim to fame was that he had had 20,000 shaving cream filled pies hit him in the face over the years. If that is funny, he was a very funny man.
.............................................................................................................
01. GOLF. There now is an 850 mile long golf course in Australia. Par 71. (Golfers have to be wary of wombat holes.)
02. SPY. Who would have thought that Fidel Castro's sister would have been a spy for the CIA? (Mr. Cheney may not know that she "outed" herself.)
03. RATINGS. FOX News is apparently enjoying being called "a wing of the Republican Party.
04. SEX. The "US Federales" have captured 700 bad people across the country in three days. This included a lot of alleged pimps engaged in child prostitution. Some child prostitutes are as young as ten!
05. SWINE FLU. I read that some "shock" radio persons are spreading rumors that the H1N1 vaccine "is tainted with antifreeze" as part of a plot by the Government to kill Americans.
This is extremely ridiculous and irresponsible. Some people who should get the vaccine, may not get it because of this misinformation. People need to take this situation seriously and make rational decisions about the vaccine. During the Flu Pandemic of many years ago, my Grandfather served his community as a volunteer nurse. In that community, nearly every family lost a member. There was no vaccine against the flu then. (Luckily, none of his 15 children got the flu bad enough to die from it.)
06. RODENT. Once again, a small animal has panicked lots of great big humans. Three hundred people were delayed for three hours while their airplane to London was "de-miced".
07. SUICIDE Epidemic. Palo Alto, California, is having a problem with teen suicides. Four students from the same high school have stepped in front of commuter trains on purpose. Eight more have been prevented from doing so. Is this the result of "ennui" for living in such a wealthy town?
08. FLY-PAPER?. A Florida man wore a "defective" pair of underwear for two weeks and claimed that the fly flap rubbed his genitals like sand-paper. He sued for compensation. Thank goodness the judge threw this one out.
09. WATCH OUT FOR STRANGE VEHICLES. If you travel in Minnesota, watch out for a drunk guy driving a motorized recliner with a built-in stereo set.
10. BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE: If you travel in Dallas, be careful, police are ticketing motorists for being "non-English-speaking drivers." George Bernard Shaw was fond of saying that Americans haven't spoken the English language for years.
11. WHERE'S THE BEEF? The owner of the three McDonald restaurants in Iceland is closing them down because the current cost of importing ingredients would cause him to have to charge the equivalent of $7 for a Big Mac, apparently too many KRONA for folks to pay.
12. ARE YOU A NONE? A study found that 14 million Americans have no religious affiliation.. they are called "nones". Some of them believe in God, some are atheists, some agnostics, and some find labels unimportant.
13. ENDANGERED SPECIES. Several Canadian provinces have banned smoking in both public and private places, even in cars and apartment buildings! However, crackheads, who have a disease called addiction, are exempted and will have medical places where they can legally "inhale"!
14. PIE IN THE FACE. Soupy Sales died last week. He was 83. His claim to fame was that he had had 20,000 shaving cream filled pies hit him in the face over the years. If that is funny, he was a very funny man.
.............................................................................................................
Sunday, August 09, 2009
End of week news.
Looking at the Baltimore Sun for Friday, August 7th, 2009:
01. I learned that Justice Sotomayor has had diabetes since childhood. This is an insidious disease and she has had to overcome its terrible effects and still become a success. I also learned that she was a recipient of affirmative action who then graduated with highest honors. There is a lesson there.
02. There was a picture of Snoop Dogg at the Raven's Camp, with the legend: Westminster Dogg Show.
03. A related article was about nicknames used by gang members. It said that some of the toughest guys have silly-sounding monikers. They mentioned that one guy was known as "Brazy" instead of "Crazy" because as a "Blood" he can't use the letter "C" in his name.
04. I was interested in this statement: "Even in a region with nearly double-digit unemployment, the crab companies remain reliant on migrant labor from abroad because so few local residennts are willing to take the messy, repetitive (crab-picking) jobs."
05. A drug suspect tried to swallow a bag of drugs and choked to death. Now his buddies are saying he really died of a police beating.
06. A technically knowledgable teen-ager made more than 80 credit cards with a machine in his home. He was arrested after he used some woman's debit card to pay for a vehicle emissions test and a $650 tab at a nightclub.
07. Senator Mikulski says that her rehab for ankle surgery at Mercy Hospital was like "boot camp". Nice play on words.
08. Flu shots later this year will probably consist of three shots: one for regular flu and two for Swine flu. (My shingles shot is still hurting my arm.)
09. China is investigating the death of a teen-ager who was allegedly beaten to death in (get this) a camp designed to treat Internet addiction.
10. Ronnie Biggs was released from jail.. look up: The Great Train Robbery!
11. Twitter suffered a "distributed denial of service (DDOS)" which is a disruptive tactic where outsiders attempt to overload a web site with huge numbers of computer-generated requests. They will have to learn how to handle these like Facebook has.
12. There was a nice long letter by two ladies who have lived together for 30 years, 5 of those as a married couple... although the marriage is not recognised by Maryland. It should be read by everyone.
13. There was a notice of the passing of family friend, Evelyn. Also a notice of the passing of the father of Mike, who graduated from high school with Elaine.
14. The Iraqi parliament is trying to ban smoking in government buildings and public indoor area.
(Watch out... remember the man who opened fire in a restaurant when he was asked to put out his cigarette.. I wonder if this has occured in the U.S......yet.)
...............................................
01. I learned that Justice Sotomayor has had diabetes since childhood. This is an insidious disease and she has had to overcome its terrible effects and still become a success. I also learned that she was a recipient of affirmative action who then graduated with highest honors. There is a lesson there.
02. There was a picture of Snoop Dogg at the Raven's Camp, with the legend: Westminster Dogg Show.
03. A related article was about nicknames used by gang members. It said that some of the toughest guys have silly-sounding monikers. They mentioned that one guy was known as "Brazy" instead of "Crazy" because as a "Blood" he can't use the letter "C" in his name.
04. I was interested in this statement: "Even in a region with nearly double-digit unemployment, the crab companies remain reliant on migrant labor from abroad because so few local residennts are willing to take the messy, repetitive (crab-picking) jobs."
05. A drug suspect tried to swallow a bag of drugs and choked to death. Now his buddies are saying he really died of a police beating.
06. A technically knowledgable teen-ager made more than 80 credit cards with a machine in his home. He was arrested after he used some woman's debit card to pay for a vehicle emissions test and a $650 tab at a nightclub.
07. Senator Mikulski says that her rehab for ankle surgery at Mercy Hospital was like "boot camp". Nice play on words.
08. Flu shots later this year will probably consist of three shots: one for regular flu and two for Swine flu. (My shingles shot is still hurting my arm.)
09. China is investigating the death of a teen-ager who was allegedly beaten to death in (get this) a camp designed to treat Internet addiction.
10. Ronnie Biggs was released from jail.. look up: The Great Train Robbery!
11. Twitter suffered a "distributed denial of service (DDOS)" which is a disruptive tactic where outsiders attempt to overload a web site with huge numbers of computer-generated requests. They will have to learn how to handle these like Facebook has.
12. There was a nice long letter by two ladies who have lived together for 30 years, 5 of those as a married couple... although the marriage is not recognised by Maryland. It should be read by everyone.
13. There was a notice of the passing of family friend, Evelyn. Also a notice of the passing of the father of Mike, who graduated from high school with Elaine.
14. The Iraqi parliament is trying to ban smoking in government buildings and public indoor area.
(Watch out... remember the man who opened fire in a restaurant when he was asked to put out his cigarette.. I wonder if this has occured in the U.S......yet.)
...............................................
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Interesting News (I think)
It's the end of April 2009 and the world is in turmoil. However, there are some news stories that one might ponder to get one's mind off of the turmoil. Here are a few:
01. Russian doctors found a fir tree growing in a man's lungs! (Wouldn't that make a great cartoon?)
02. An 89 year old man in Australia was mauled by a pack of wild mice.
03. Prince Charles met with the Pope to discuss the environment. (Papal warming?)
04. Scientists have announced that if a pulsar the size of a silver dollar landed on Earth, it would weigh 100 million tons.
05. A baby girl in New Zealand was named Zealand-New.
06. Many aeons ago, one of the Popes was named Hilarious. (look it up)
07. Years ago, Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore delivered lots of babies to indigent mothers. Usually, they would give the child a name. One of the names given to a newborn by a doctor was: Positive Wasserman Johnson. (look it up in Mencken's great book, The American Language.)
08. A man named Justin Brady changed his name to "Ynot Bubba." (Why not?)
09. A man shot his wife through the head and then killed himself. When the police arrived, she was busy making tea.
10. A cat in China adopted two puppies that she is teaching to catch mice. (needed in Australia.. see # 02 above.)
11. A woman dying of lung cancer in Massachusetts says: "Some people, like me, are just born to smoke."
12. United Airlines began demanding that people with fat butts buy a second seat.
13. There is a new scam to watch out for.. guys who enter restaurants and look for people (at table) who are ready to pay their bills, and tell them they will take the money (or credit card!) for them, and then disappear.
14. A nude man drove his pickup truck through the wall of an emergency room in North Dakota.
15. The magazine This Week reports that "Le Whif".. a lipstick sized mini inhaler shoots a calorie-free chocolate mist into your mouth for $2 for 4 puffs.
16. The @ sign for Internet use means "love him" in Chinese.
17. A New York worker is demanding pay for the lunch hour he lost when he was "locked down" during a shoot-out.
18. An overdue book returned to a Canadian library was taken out in 1899. The $9,000 fine was waived. (I have a book that I borrowed from the New Bedford, Massachusetts Public Library 50 years ago. I've been told to wait for "amnesty day" to return it... I know, I know... no excuse for my action.)
If you want to know more about these subjects, you might want to "google" them.
Auf wiedersehen.
01. Russian doctors found a fir tree growing in a man's lungs! (Wouldn't that make a great cartoon?)
02. An 89 year old man in Australia was mauled by a pack of wild mice.
03. Prince Charles met with the Pope to discuss the environment. (Papal warming?)
04. Scientists have announced that if a pulsar the size of a silver dollar landed on Earth, it would weigh 100 million tons.
05. A baby girl in New Zealand was named Zealand-New.
06. Many aeons ago, one of the Popes was named Hilarious. (look it up)
07. Years ago, Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore delivered lots of babies to indigent mothers. Usually, they would give the child a name. One of the names given to a newborn by a doctor was: Positive Wasserman Johnson. (look it up in Mencken's great book, The American Language.)
08. A man named Justin Brady changed his name to "Ynot Bubba." (Why not?)
09. A man shot his wife through the head and then killed himself. When the police arrived, she was busy making tea.
10. A cat in China adopted two puppies that she is teaching to catch mice. (needed in Australia.. see # 02 above.)
11. A woman dying of lung cancer in Massachusetts says: "Some people, like me, are just born to smoke."
12. United Airlines began demanding that people with fat butts buy a second seat.
13. There is a new scam to watch out for.. guys who enter restaurants and look for people (at table) who are ready to pay their bills, and tell them they will take the money (or credit card!) for them, and then disappear.
14. A nude man drove his pickup truck through the wall of an emergency room in North Dakota.
15. The magazine This Week reports that "Le Whif".. a lipstick sized mini inhaler shoots a calorie-free chocolate mist into your mouth for $2 for 4 puffs.
16. The @ sign for Internet use means "love him" in Chinese.
17. A New York worker is demanding pay for the lunch hour he lost when he was "locked down" during a shoot-out.
18. An overdue book returned to a Canadian library was taken out in 1899. The $9,000 fine was waived. (I have a book that I borrowed from the New Bedford, Massachusetts Public Library 50 years ago. I've been told to wait for "amnesty day" to return it... I know, I know... no excuse for my action.)
If you want to know more about these subjects, you might want to "google" them.
Auf wiedersehen.
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