It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve gone over to Soda Springs. Meanwhile, mother’s computer stopped working. If the computer is online, I have the ability to log into it from home and do maintenance. However, it was not online and mother was unable to get it to respond. So, while Nina and her niece Ashlyn were up at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center doing a craft class, I drove over to Soda Springs on Thursday. We’ve been getting a lot of rain Wednesday and Thursday along with some snow in the higher elevations.

The computer problem was quickly solved, but no apparent reason for the problem. The computer was on, but not responding. Pushing and holding the power button did nothing. I finally unplugged the computer, waited for a bit, plugged it back in, and it started up normally. I had a nice visit with mother and an uneventful drive over and back.

For a couple of months I’ve been thinking about registering for school at Idaho State University and taking a couple of Chinese classes. In 1963-1964 I was sent by the US Air Force to Yale University for an intensive Chinese language class. In the meantime, I’ve forgotten almost all the Chinese that I ever learned. I felt it was time to rebuild that capability. So, the other day I called the registrar’s office and was told to go online and make an application. I tried with a very strange outcome. I was “kind of” registered, but some required files were not created. The university is bringing a new computer system online and it definitely didn’t work correctly. After spending some time working with their help desk and talking with the registrar, it turned out that the process for registering as a “non-degree-seeking student” was broken and I had to go into the registrar’s office and fill out a paper form. I went over to the office and learned that there would be no Chinese classes this fall.

The information from the Registrar’s Office was that the professor had left the university and because of a hiring freeze due to the budget crisis, a replacement wasn’t going to be hired for the fall semester. The back story is that the professor was forced out and that the entire language department is being brutally dismembered. I’ve not been impressed with what has been going on at the University lately and this is just another debacle in process. The faculty last week voted “no confidence” in the provost and the level of dissension is unprecedented. Meanwhile, I don’t get to take a Chinese language class. I’m not pleased.

TTFN!

A couple of years ago, my wife Nina gathered together some things she had been saving for more than 30 years from my time in the United States Air Force, put them in frames, and gave them to me as a Christmas present.

We spent that Christmas down in North Salt Lake at our daughter’s house with her family. After we got back home, we couldn’t find the pictures. For more than two years the pictures have been something we’ve commented about, but they were gone … until April 20th. Nina dropped her iPhone down between the bed and the storage bench at the foot of the bed. She pulled the storage bench away from the bed and there were the pictures underneath the bench.

Someday I’ll put scans of the pictures on my blog. Today, though, I’ve scanned the picture taken of me when I was selected as Airman of the Quarter for Yokota AFB in Japan in the spring of 1967. A few interesting things about the picture:

• I was really skinny back then!
• I didn’t have any hair then, either.
• The badge over my right pocket was my “Combat Crew Badge” which was awarded to airmen flying as part of a combat crew in southeast Asia (specifically, Vietnam). Nina saved the badge. The rule then was I could wear that in place of a name plate.
• The wings over my left pocket are permanent wings awarded after three years of flight status. The fact that these wings were awarded to enlisted airmen was quite controversial. A couple of times as I was transiting between Japan and Vietnam, I got confronted by some officer who demanded that I remove the wings because I was an enlisted person. For a while I actually carried the orders with me to show the officer who then became rather befuddled (a usual officer state).
• The two rows of ribbons weren’t all the medals I was entitled to wear. However, it was considered austentatious for a lowly enlisted man like I was to wear more than two rows of ribbons except when wearing a formal dress uniform. There was also lots of protocol about which ribbons one should wear and what order they are displayed.
• Top row: Small Arms Expert Marksman (I was dead-eye with a .45 caliber pistol, marksman with a .38 pistol, and expert with the M-16), Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (with a cluster),  and Air Force Good Conduct Medal
• Bottom row: National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with three clusters, and the Air Medal (a very special medal)
• Other medals awarded, but not worn in this picture: Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, and the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award

Thanks, sweety,  for the re-find!

TTFN!

Every couple of months an opportunity comes up to read to pre-school children enrolled in Head Start. This is a program designed to help young children from disadvantaged households become ready to start school when they become old enough. The program focuses on helping these kids learn social skills, focus skills, and attention skills. I really admire the teachers and aides working with these kids, many of whom come from extremely dysfunctional situations.

A few times a year through the efforts of the service organizations in town, children’s books are donated to the program and volunteers come into the school to read these books to the children. Enough books are donated so each child can have one of them for their very own (which really excites these kids). Hopefully when they take the books home, someone in the family will read it to them again and again.

Reading to children is the single most important thing that families can do to prepare their children for school.

Today I read two books (one was a counting book about animals having fun, and the other was the Gingerbread Man book, that is, Run Run as fast as you can, but you’ll never catch the gingerbread man) to a group of 3-year-olds. Once I start reading they all pay rapt attention and after the book they all want to say something about the book … and I let them all talk in turn. After that I read a book about butterflies to a group of 4-year-olds who are growing butterflies in their class. The caterpillars have spun their cocoons and soon will emerge as butterflies. These kids, although a year older, have very similar reactions, except they want to talk after every page!

This is a very fun activity. Every time it comes up, I volunteer to go. During the summer  the schools sponsor lunch in the park … every kid who shows up gets a free lunch every day during the summer (paid for with federal grant money). On Wednesdays volunteers team up with the bookmobile and read stories to the kids while they’re eating their lunch. I’ll be part of that activity this summer as well.

TTFN!

One of the trees in our backyard broke out in leaves on Sunday and another shows great promise. The forecast is for rain the next few days and that might just green up the grass a little bit. Spring is definitely breaking out all over.

The cough suppressant has done it’s job. While the cold hasn’t gone away, I got a very good night’s sleep and actually feel like doing something. That something was pretty much in the home office or in the recliner snoozing. Late in the afternoon my cousin Cheryl in Boise told me about a great deal on printer paper from Staples. By using a couple of coupon codes I was able to buy two boxes of paper (20 reams) for a total of $6.58, including free shipping to my house. That was pretty amazing.

Cousin Cheryl is one of the shopping queens … particularly cheap shopping. She brings home amazing quantities of things at incredibly low prices. A couple of times she’s actually been paid to buy stuff. She has an incredible wit about her and some of the exchanges between her and my daughter Jaelene are just priceless.

I like flowering trees. Pretty soon the willows whose name I always get wrong will burst out in yellow flowers. They’re either wisteria or forsythia or something like that.

The most fun with flowering trees, however, has happened in Japan. The cherry blossoms are revered all through Japan. They start blooming in the south and march northward to the top of the country as winter turns into spring. The news reports showing where the cherry trees are blooming probably take precedence over all other news items (except maybe something drastic happening to the Emperor). As the trees came into blossom around Tsukuba when we were living there in the late 1990’s, my department would always schedule a “hanami” (literally means ‘cherry blossom viewing’, but in reality was a great excuse to have a party with lots and lots to drink) in a park where the trees would all be in bloom.

Since it would always rain on the party as well, they were usually held in tents set up by companies who provided these parties and venues. We would sit at tables grilling little pieces of food, some folks drinking copious amounts of beer and others, like me, not-so-copious-amounts of soft drinks, and just having a great time. It is a beautiful Japanese tradition. I miss it each year and am reminded about these parties when the trees here burst out into bloom.

TTFN!

This morning I finally had enough. After several bouts of coughing spells last night during which I could hardly catch my breath, my whole chest was SORE and my diaphragm especially so. It even hurt to just breathe. The cold was definitely winning.

So, I made my way down to an urgent care center to see someone about a prescription for something that would stop the cough. After filling out three pages of medical history I then went into an examination room where a nurse took my vital signs. The machine to take blood pressure was not going to succeed, so she did it the old fashioned way and came up with a blood pressure of 210 over 142. Not good! She immediately went to get the Physician’s Assistant who was seeing patients. He came in and took my blood pressure in my right arm. A little better: 160 over 108. We went through the rest of his process and he agreed (after I had a couple of coughing spells while he was there) that I needed something and wrote a prescription for Cheratussin AC Syrup. He then took my blood pressure again in my left arm and got 132 over 86, a much nicer number.

I got the prescription filled and came home. It’s kind of working. I took a nap and woke up coughing, so took another dose. Since then it’s been better.

But that got me wondering … what was the difference between the Calmylin from Canada I was taking and the prescription? It turns out that the prescription itself was twice the price of the Calmylin from Canada and half the potency of codeine. That doesn’t take into account the cost of the visit to the urgent care facility. I’m hoping that when I get to a position with sufficient codeine in my system, that taking the prescribed dose will maintain a reasonable suppressant level.

Because I’m now a Medicare / Blue Cross person, the urgent care facility first bills them and then whatever they don’t pay gets billed to me. So, I’ve no idea what this visit to see the PA actually cost. There was a sign with a price list and the cost associated with “cold or flu” was $55. That may not be the Medicare price, though.

Meanwhile, another front on the battle with this cold has been opened. It’ll go away some day, I’m sure of it.

TTFN!

Ink for printers is incredibly expensive, in my not-so-humble opinion. The cheapest place to buy ink from the manufacturer is at Costco. However, Costco only sells printer inks for the latest printer models and then only in sets. Nina uses a lot of black ink and we’ve got plenty of colored ink for her printer. So, I checked a couple of options in town. Both Staples and OfficeMax sell just the black ink her printer needs. That’s goodness. The price for a cartridge of black ink at OfficeMax is a dollar more expensive than a set of black and color cartridges from Costco. Staples as even more expensive. There’s something wrong with this picture!

This busy day included:

The Pocatello Amateur Radio Club monthly breakfast at 9 a.m. I went and had an OK breakfast, but the location combined with my cold made for a less-than-hoped-for experience. There were about 18 of us at the breakfast in a row of tables in the room with everyone else and the noise level was so high I came away with a serious headache.

The Kinport Branch Relief Society (that’s the group up at the Women’s Prison where Nina was the Relief Society President until last September) had a conference and a fashion show in the afternoon. Nina went and reported that it was an excellent meeting with excellent attendance from the women. It ended at 3 p.m. which was the time that Nina and I both had to be underway to Idaho Falls for a special meeting followed by an endowment session. So, she ducked out early and I met her at the Stake Center so we could head north.

Each year as part of Ward Conferences, the Stake schedules a Saturday afternoon meeting at the Temple with a member of the Temple Presidency followed by an endowment session. These are always very delightful and beneficial events. The cold didn’t leave me alone, however. At the beginning of the endowment session I got coughing so hard I was sure I would have to leave. Thanks to folks around me, we got it under control. I’m rather unhappy with this cold.

TTFN!

There was a series of fires “of suspicious origin” over several months ending a little over a year ago out on the Reservation. Someone was setting these fires. There was some damage to property but for the most part, these fires were put out before any serious damage was done. Then we went a little more than a year with no fires until the 16th. We’ve had a dry spring and a fire would spread quickly, which this one did. Several fire departments were needed to get the blaze under control and put out. Maybe this fire isn’t related to those a year or so ago … but it seems a bit “suspicious” in my mind!

This was our usual busy Friday starting with a 3:30 a.m. alarm and our shift at the Idaho Falls Temple. The day before I got a phone call from a company here in town with an invitation to come in for an interview. They’re looking for some programming help on a project for a new client. I’m one of several people being interviewed for the position. It was an interesting interview and I enjoyed getting to know a little about the company and their business. While I would very much enjoy doing some work for them, I’m pretty sure they’ll go a different direction.

The cold is not going away. In fact, it feels like it’s getting worse.

TTFN!

I usually try to get my taxes done well before the deadline. For some reason that didn’t happen this year! I finally got everything together and worked up the tax return on the evening of the 14th. I use software from H&R Block to do my taxes which includes free electronic filing for the federal tax return, but doesn’t include free electronic filing for state tax returns. Since I was getting a refund from the feds and owed the State of Idaho money, I elected to electronically file federal taxes and to mail in my state return along with my check and thus hang onto the money for a bit longer.

So, on my way down to Salt Lake City I dropped the state tax envelope off at the post office. I have a nice 70-300mm lens for my digital SLR Sony camera. I originally bought the lens in Japan for my Minolta film SLR back in 1997. That lens plus a couple of others was the reason I bought the Minolta DSLR camera. I really liked that camera a lot. Then, the Minolta camera was stolen out of my luggage on a trip to the Philippines. Because I had the lenses, I bought a Sony A100 digital camera to replace it. A few months ago my favorite 70-300 lens began having a problem. The zoom mechanism would bind, probably meaning a little gear in the lens somewhere was worn out. Eventually the mechanism stopped working completely. I could still use the lens, but had to pull the barrel out or  push it back in to set the zoom that I wanted. One side effect was that the zoom information was no longer being stored in the data information about the picture.

A few weeks ago when we were in Salt Lake, I took the lens over to Inkley’s to see about getting the lens fixed. They took my deposit and sent it off to the repair shop. Unfortunately, parts “were no longer available” and the lens couldn’t be repaired. It was back at the store in Salt Lake, so I made a quick trip down and back to retrieve the lens.

The Portneuf Valley ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) will be providing some communications assistance to the Pocatello50 Super Marathon being held on May 29th. The day ended with a meeting of the group to continue with the planning for the communications we’ll be providing. This will be a lot of fun.

TTFN!