Walt Disney is reputed to have said, “Change is inevitable, growth is optional.” I’m not necessarily in agreement; I think that change causes growth whether one likes it or not, but that the resulting growth is not necessarily beneficial. Some of noteworthy changes that I’ve seen in the past year include:

• There’s probably universal acceptance that the political scene has changed rather significantly. To me the most noteworthy change in the political climate is how harshly partisan the federal politics has become. There seems to be no such thing as bipartisanship anymore, regardless of whether or not the word is used. That partisanship is appearing even within political parties. Several times in our political history political parties have disintegrated (remember the Whigs?) and a new political party has emerged. That could be happening again. If so, I’m very interested to see what emerges as neither of the political parties today are serving my needs!
• Due to an unfortunate mishap earlier this year, we have a newer Toyota Avalon to drive instead of the Toyota Camry we were driving before. We’ve had three accidents with the Avalon since we got it last April, which is pretty much a bummer (leads me to think the car is jinxed), two of them not our fault. We had the first snowstorm of the winter a few days ago and promptly learned that the Avalon as presently outfitted with tires does not perform well in the snow at all. The slip-sliding is not only disconcerting, but the vehicle has some kind of a sensor that says the car is skidding and it automatically cuts the power to the drive wheels. It’s not the way I think it should operate at all. It seems to always think the car is hydroplaning rather than trying to gain traction. It’s going to get some robust snow tires Real Soon Now and then comes figuring out how to drive a car that thinks it’s smarter than the driver.
• Shortly after Nina was released from her Relief Society calling at the womens prison, we were “invited” to serve once a week at the Idaho Falls Temple. This brought interesting change into our lives in several dimensions. First, we now have an obligation every week (except when the Temple is closed). If we can’t be there, it is our responsibility to find someone to substitute for us (not an easy task). Secondly, even though we’ve served as Temple workers before in Denver, the Idaho Falls Temple is on a different plane. Requiring four times as many workers, with four floors and innumerable rooms and places, it is definitely a change from what we were used to in the Denver Temple. Next, there is so much that goes on “behind the scenes” in the temple that being a worker changes the entire Temple experience for the better. Additionally, the Temple has become the focal point of the week around which everything else revolves. That is, everything we decide to do in our week is first measured against it’s impact on Friday morning when we’re going to be in the Temple. Finally, I’ve definitely proven to my satisfaction that I can sleep anywhere, anytime, anyplace, except on Thursday night when I have to be up and moving at 3:00 a.m. on Friday morning. That is indeed an interesting change.
• We’ve moved from Windows computers to Mac computers in this household. I bought a Macbook computer after I was laid off, had to give my laptop computer back to the company, and needed a computer. I would not in any way, ever, move back to a Windows computer. Nina’s Dell notebook has been getting quite sick … almost terminal, actually. We were able to put it on life support by buying an external mouse, keyboard, and monitor and pretty much turning it into a desktop computer and thus giving up the portability. That finally became untenable for Nina and she decided to buy a new notebook computer. She bought a Macbook and has begun the transition over to that system. She’s had several “Aha” moments and will have many more as she gets comfortable with a computer “that just works.”

There are more interesting changes, but there’s a limit to how many words I’ll want to read some time in the future.

Ta ta for now!

I love music, just about all kinds of music (maybe excepting rap, most hip hop, and some jazz). I’ve had portable music players almost since they were invented, starting with a Sony Walkman, continuing through cd players, the iPod, and now my beloved iPhone. I’ve never “stolen” music; I’m happy to pay for my music. The advent of the iTunes store was fantastic. Now I could buy just the music I wanted without having to buy a whole album.

Unfortunately, that ability seems to be a significant reason for the decline of the whole music industry. They couldn’t figure out how to capitalize on this ability and instead began suing their best customers, definitely a strategy to fail.

Being able to make up my own playlists on iTunes an then seamlessly take them with me anywhere was a great move forward in technology. I further loved that Apple added to that the ability to rent or buy movies, and then TV shows. I don’t watch hardly any network TV and whenever I’m tempted, I download an episode of the program from iTunes, watch it, and am reminded once again why I don’t watch network TV.

Then came Pandora. I love Pandora. I wish there was a good way to pay Pandora so they definitely stay in business. Through Pandora I’ve discovered a whole lot of music that I would never have found otherwise.

One example is a group called Gaelic Storm. They’re a kind of a Los Angeles Celtic group. They got their break in the movie Titanic as the third-class-entertaining “steerage band” (a movie I’ve never seen). I heard their The Devil Down Below on Pandora and they went on my favorites list.

Another Pandora find was Leaves’ Eyes. Their Mot Fjerne Land is another piece of music that always makes me smile when I hear it.

Pandora is hands down my pick for “Best Music Find!”

Ta ta for now!

Challenges are what make life interesting, usually. When I was making up the list of things to write about, I decided to include this category even though, at the time, I didn’t really know how I would approach the topic. The operative word in “big”.

That brings “weight” to mind. My weight is indeed a challenge, but that has stayed pretty much the same for the past three years or so and perhaps gone down slightly (only enough that I would notice … because of how a particular pair of pants buttons at the waist). Consequently, weight will not be the “biggest” challenge for this year. Maybe next year?

Some people have trouble finding enough to do when they’re “retired.” I don’t have that problem at all. In fact, I think I’m busier than I ever was when I was working. Between Rotary, working every Friday at the Idaho Falls Temple, my Church calling on the High Council, and building and maintaining websites, I feel like my life is very busy.

Another challenge has been the change in disposable income. Our income has certainly changed. Rather than one income stream from an employer, we now rely on several income streams from different sources. So far that has worked out well enough that we haven’t had to make too many lifestyle changes. Perhaps the biggest change has been that we’re vacationing in the United States rather than somewhere overseas.

While all of those have presented some amount of challenge, in fact our biggest challenge has been something that has been a very hot and passionate topic for the past nine months: health care.

We have very poor health insurance. After I was laid off we had the ability to continue our health insurance under COBRA. It cost us about a thousand dollars a month out of our own pocket for eighteen months and ended last December. Attempting to replace that turned out to be futile. It would cost about $2,400 a month. We eventually found some insurance that’ll help a bit with routine stuff, but should anything major happen, we’re on our own. It’s only marginally better than having no insurance at all.

Our health insurance system is badly broken. It needs to be fixed. I have to get through another four months and then I’ll be eligible for medicare. As broken as medicare is, it’s still significantly better than anything else available. Nina has to get through another sixteen months before she’s eligible for medicare. As bad as her knees are, that’s going to be a major challenge.

All the rhetoric about health care and the vitriol directed at the Democrats seems to be coming from people who are comfortable in their employer-provided health insurance. I truly think they’d change their tune if they were in our position.

So, that’s the biggest challenge that we’re facing: The lack of credible and affordable health insurance.

Ta ta for now!

We do a lot of driving and even occasionally deliberately get in the car to drive somewhere and back just for the fun of it. Those rides almost always involve a lot of stops to take pictures of things. This past week we had a reason to drive from Idaho Falls to Ucon for a luncheon after our shift at the Idaho Falls Temple. We could take either the ten-minute version of the drive up the four-lane highway, or the 30-minute version along the rural country roads. We opted for the 30-minute version and saw a fabulous old barn that we’ll need to visit some day in the future with cameras in tow.

Some of the drives happen because we’re vacationing somewhere. The “best car ride” happened this year when we were in Yellowstone National Park in September. Unlike past visits to the Park, this time we did things a bit differently. Rather than visit all the tourist attractions, we put our motor home into a campsite at Canyon Village and then drove out the Park entrances to Red Lodge, Montana and to Cody, Wyoming. We hadn’t take the Cody route in more than twenty years and had never driven the Bear Tooth Highway over to Red Lodge.

Both drives took a full day and both were beautiful drives with many stops to take pictures. The Bear Tooth Highway goes over a high mountain pass and then drops down on the other side over a switch-back road down. The views at the top (as evidenced by the picture to the top left) were quite spectacular. This was definitely the “best car ride” of 2009!

Ta ta for now!

It’s could be easy to say that Perry is my favorite brother because he’s my only brother and there’s no one else who could get bent out of shape over that statement.

But, that’s definitely not the only reason why I’d put my brother into a “favorite” category! He is a great guy, a lot of fun, and enjoyable to be around. His wife Chris is just as delightful. So, those attributes would put him in the “favorite” group for sure.

He also lives in Green River, Wyoming. Now normally that wouldn’t be any kind of a recommendation. There really isn’t much to recommend the city (other than Perry and Chris live there). The wind seems to always blow there. If it’s cold here in Pocatello, it’ll be dang cold in Green River. If it rains here, it’ll sprinkle there tomorrow. But with all that, there’s a good reason to include the fact that he lives in Green River, Wyoming as part of the reason he’s a “favorite”. Green River is four hours east of Pocatello. We make Big Trips East quite often. We can get a jump on the trip by leaving in the late afternoon (such as after we’re finished with our Church assignments) and drive to his house to spend the night. Then the next morning we’re four hours closer to our eastern destination. Not only does it give us a “leg up” on the trip, we also get to spend some time with them. We can also do it both going and coming!

Are there other reasons to put him in the “favorite” column? You betcha. We instant messenger each other often. It’s a great way to chat while doing other things, like him watching the Atlanta Braves blow a baseball game (big grin!). We meet up occasionally in Salt Lake City, where he has to go often because that’s the closest place to do any shopping (or to return things without a box and without a receipt). When we do meet up there, it always includes food, which is another of my favorites. He even made the trip over here once so we could sing at the local Messiah Sing-in! He’s got a nice baritone voice and it’s fun to sing with him (not much other musical talent, though).

Are there any “meh” things? Only a couple. He is a major NASCAR fan. I like vehicles that can turn right as well as left. Like millions of others, he’s pharming on Facebook. I have those applications hidden on my Facebook feed, which cuts out 2/3rds of his newsfeed. And, he has non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. It is currently in remission, but unless someone comes up with a cure, it’ll probably kill him much too soon and that’ll just plain piss me off.

There’s no competition in this category. He’s definitely a favorite!

Ta ta for now!

My thoughts on what constitutes a project have changed since I’m no longer working for someone else. In those days, someone else defined projects, usually the customers of our computer systems. Nowadays, my projects are varied and seem to not have much to do with computers anymore.

Last year I built a raised garden bed for Nina. I liked the result and figured out a number of things I could do to improve on the design and to reduce the amount of work to make one of them. That turned into a project to build several of them that I could sell and we actually set up a “store” at the local farmer’s market. They didn’t sell very well, for a number of reasons (mostly they’re too expensive for a farmer’s market). The idea branched into some related gardening projects and I think we’ll do something a bit different in the coming year, still advertising the big garden beds, but having small planters and potato boxes and the like available there to sell. All in all, this was a great project.

One project did have to do with computers. I approached a couple of cities in the area and got the opportunity to build a websites for the cities. One of them is still a work in progress, but it’s been a lot of fun. I do get paid, but not nearly enough to be real compensation. Mostly, the cost is to get them to understand the work isn’t free and they’ve got to do some investment themselves. The websites were for Georgetown and Montpelier. I think next year I’ll try to do several more now that I’ve got some of the learning curve finished. These were fun projects.

Sometimes a larger project actually becomes several smaller projects. Getting my ham radio license and then getting set up to be able to use the license would be the overall project. Building this antenna was one of the smaller projects. It took several days (I could build one now in a day) doing the research, buying the materials, and figuring out how to actually do the construction. The antenna is made out of 1/2″ copper pipe. It’s called a J-Pole since the antenna is kind of in the shape of a  “J”. This one is tuned for the two-meter ham radio band (a set of frequencies above the FM radio band) and works quite nicely. It sits in the front yard just outside the computer room window until I can get some coax threaded up into the attic and can move the antenna up onto the roof. This was a fun project.

I’m sure there have been a number of other projects, they just aren’t coming to mind at the moment.

Nevertheless, there is a “best project”: The raised garden beds. It was the start of a new hobby and a lot of fun.

Ta ta for now!

In order to be a “new hobby” it probably has to be something I started this year. That kind of limits the selection to two things: making garden stuff and ham radio. It’s probably also a foregone conclusion which one makes the “best”?

I decided to make some raised garden beds and sell them. While they’re pretty nice, there’s no demand! I did sell one custom garden bed, one corner bed, and one potato box, but that wasn’t enough to even cover my expenses. I had a lot of fun making sawdust. I’d like to figure out something else to make that might be useful enough for people to buy. Suggestions welcome!

In September while we were in Yellowstone Park, I was kind of bemoaning the lack of connectivity when someone in the line told me that they had great connectivity; they had a ham radio setup. I talked with them a bit more and learned that quite a few RV owners also had ham radio licenses. A few days later I was reading an article on people who are on full-time RV “vacations” and communicate with other similar-minded folks on the two-meter ham radio band.

When I was about 14 or 15, I got my first ham radio license and a year later upgraded the license. I let the license expire while we were in the Air Force. However, I remember that I had a great time on the air waves.

I’ve since become licensed … my call sign is KF7FXZ. I’ve bought a two-meter radio, built a good antenna for the system, and am in the process of making it possible to put this transceiver in my car so I can use it while mobile.

This new hobby is definitely the “best new hobby!”

Ta ta for now!

Every year has its fair share of ups and downs. 2009 was, in that regard, not much different. I saw this image online and thought it would go nicely with this post. In my case, there’s no hair left to be pulled out.

Picking one frustration is impossible. So, I thought I’d make a list, in no particular order. Just because something comes earlier on the list doesn’t mean that something else lower on the list isn’t a higher frustration!

1. Traffic in and around Salt Lake City. It’s not that there is too much traffic, it’s that everyone seems to drive as though they’re fifteen minutes late and still have fifteen minutes of driving left. I’ve often thought that Mormons of all people should be the most courteous drivers. However, I remember many General Conference Priesthood Meetings where at the end the attendees were reminded to observe traffic laws and be polite and courteous of other drivers. On the other hand, my frustration may come from the fact that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve slowed down a bit!
2. Meetings starting late to wait for potential late comers. This drives me up the wall, actually. The message that I receive is that my time is not as important as someone else’s who isn’t there yet.
3. Health Insurance. The system is broken. Fix it already!
4. Elected officials whining. The other day I was reading an article in the Preston, Idaho newspaper about the county hospital board’s reaction to the failed bond levy in the past election. The measure required a 2/3’s majority to pass and failed by a 2/3’s majority. According to the board, the voters “didn’t understand.” So it’s the voter’s fault? Not so. If the voters didn’t understand, then whose responsibility was it to educate them?
5. My weight. Why can’t the pounds just go away? Exercise actually doesn’t help very much. It seems that to lose weight, one must eat less. To maintain weight, one must exercise. I don’t like that situation.

Ta ta for now!