Longing for the Analog World

Longing for the Analog World
I sure miss the old analog world. Life was simpler then.

Last Saturday was our time change. I can remember not that long ago when it was simple to change the time in my cars. I pushed a button once or turned a dial one click and the time changed and the hour moved suddenly forward.

Of course, I had to push the button or click the dial more when the time changed in the Fall.

My Pathfinder was easy to change; one click of the dial and I was set.

Fifteen minutes later and thumbing through my owner’s manuals, I was able to set the MINI’s clock ahead.

Digital smigital; sometimes I wonder if it is such a great deal for me.

Be well and stay happy.

Thoughts on e-dting

Thoughts on e-dating
The vast majority of women at the e-dating web sites had great photos and descriptions of themselves and what they liked to do. Some of the photos were professionally short and probably photo shopped to some degree. Almost were divorced women; there some widows and some never married women.

I remember one woman who was maybe middle to late fifties, say 55 or 57. She had never been married and wanted kids. I’m thinking I hope she was planning to adopt.

In the end, it all boiled down to the fact that some other guy couldn’t put with their drama and dung anymore and divorced them.

That was a comforting conclusion for me.


Be well and stay happy.

The Ides of March

The Ides of March
Here we are at the Ides of March. This is always a troubling time it seems; well, it does seem that way for me most of the time.

Maybe I feel this way because I haven’t had a blog entry in some time.

To be honest, my life has been dull and unworthy of any entries.

The MINI and Me
The MINI is still running fine for me. Since this is our Winter or what passes for Winter in Southern California, I haven’t been driving too much with the top down. Our rainfall is down but it has been on the cool side. I don’t like to drive with the top down and the temperature is around 58F/14C.


In January, I had 12.50 hours driving with the top and I had 12.25 in February.

The car rolled or blinked over 29,110 miles in January and reached 30, 423 in February. Nice.

On average, I am able to attain a modest degree of fuel economy. I have been averaging between 30 and 31 miles per gallon in the car. I think I could do better if I drove a bit better. I could slow down some and drive at a steadier pace.

Balancing Checkbooks the Blog
The blog continues to draw traffic even if I don’t write for it. Doug doesn’t write for it either. No one page has more than 10% of the page visits. I can remember when two pages drew 80% of the traffic.

The blog had 660 visitors in January who viewed 1,257 pages. February was almost identical even with being two days shorter. It had 633 visitors who viewed 1,232 pages.

L. A. Food Show
The L. A. Food Show was my favorite local restaurant.

It closed in early February. Doug and I had lunch there in its last week. I have always enjoyed dining there and I never had a bad meal.

I did have one poor meal but the disappointment was not so bad because I tried a very new special at the time and the chef in the kitchen messed on the sauce for the fish. It was supposed to be caper sauce so I naturally expected to see capers in the sauce. There were none. I mentioned the lack of capers to the manager. She apologized and took the meal off of the bill.

That was more than I had expected from her.

I first went to the Show about two months after it opened. The Princess and her best friend from graduate took me there so I could buy the women lunch.

I don’t know why it closed. It was always full when I went there to eat.

e-dating
I’ve taken a break from e-dating and matching. I may try again in the Fall. I guess my biggest disappointment was not being able to find a match that had the possibilities of lasting.

I was also frustrated by the failures to come up with matches that met my criteria. I would point out the Princess said my criteria was overly broad. I asked for matches that were close to me and ended up with matches that were almost 100 miles away.

I am politically conservative. Most veterans are this way. Navy officers like me tend to be more conservative. I have no idea why or how I was matched with women who were liberal and very liberal.

Anyway, I’m over that now and moving on.

On the bright side, I didn’t get hit with any expensive gifts for Christmas and St. Valentine’s Day.

Excellent.

Me and the doctors
I have been seeing doctors the two months. I’m in good health; it was checkup time for me.

My family practice doctor had me in for my six month follow up. He was concerned about a blood sugar test in September called the A1c test. I had a test value of 7.9 which is very bad. In January, it was down to 6.6 even after all of the holiday candy I had to eat. Gourmet candy was the big Christmas gift for me from my nieces and nephew. All of my other tests were in their normal, historic ranges.

I also saw an ophthalmologist for another follow up. My regular eye doctor thought I was developing a case of glaucoma and she referred me to him for a second opinion.

I don’t have a case of glaucoma.

Excellent.

Dr. Raj Dugel discovered I was in early stages of developing cataracts and that I would need operations within the next three to five years. I thought that was fine since I have had three major operations in the last four years. An outpatient surgical procedure is a piece of cake compared to leaving the hospital with a twelve inch long incision scar.

I had a CT scan this week in preparation for a follow up visit with Dr. Joseph Kim at the city of Hope in April. It will be a six month follow up after his operation on my liver in September.

Cinema
I’ve only seen two films so far this year. Nothing seemed to interest me very much.

I did see TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY. I really enjoyed the film and I placed it on my 2012 DVDs to Acquire list. I thought the film was excellent in all aspects. It was nice to see a film without any CGI or car chases or exploding building.

My only disappointment was with the sound. There were some scenes that I could not hear. I believe this had to do with the sound mixing or maybe it was the negative or DVD copy the theater had to show.

The other film was THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY. This is another of excellent anime features from Studio GhiBli. This was the anime that Hayao Miyazaki did not act as the director. Miyazaki did write the screenplay so he did have a creative input.

This film is not for everyone. You have to like anime. I have ten of Miyazaki’s other anime films so it seems likely that I will purchase this one as well.


Be well and stay happy.

Molly the Stylist

Molly the Stylist
I went to see Molly to have my hair cut this morning. It was getting on the shaggy side and needed to be trimmed badly.


Today was supposed to be a day for Molly’s next close up. This is my description of getting a new photo of her and me for the blog. It was a poor hair day and someone was not feeling photogenic.

We did have a discussion on why I should stop giving her candy. Molly loves chocolate in any form and almost dies for M&M peanuts. Perfectly logical decisions I think. I did point out that St. Valentine’s Day was the next likely candy gift until Halloween and that she would have close to four months to get ready for bikini season.

I think that was when she might have decided she was being a bit too hasty in telling me no more candy.

Joyriding
Since I wasn’t interested in the professional football games on television Sunday morning, I went for a joy ride in the MINI with the top down. It was perfect weather for the joy ride.

The temperature was about 80F / 27C.

The sky was cloudless.

The roads were fairly empty of traffic so I could roll right along.

It was a great way to spend some time.

New Shoes
I ordered some new casual shoes from L. L. Bean. They arrived yesterday while I was in class. I put them on this morning and I love my new shoes. They are beyond comfortable. The best feature on my shoes is they were on sale when I ordered them; I saved almost 50%.

Perfect.


Be well and stay happy.

End of Year Excitment

End of Year Excitement
Maybe calling this blog posting the End of Year Excitement is a classic example of poetic license. I hope my license hasn’t expired yet. I still have lots of writing left to do.
Moving on.

The Year in Numbers
It was an interesting year for me in terms of numbers. Surprisingly, everything added up nicely for me.

The blog finished up the year with a good showing. Of course, it is way off its totals from when I was posting the Woman of the Moment features. That drove travel significantly for the blog. December had 529 visitors who viewed 1,099 pages. The total for the year was 3,878. The cumulative total from when I started the blog in 1995 is 62,299 visitors.

I felt good about my little blog until Doug told me earlier in December that one his blogs, NBA Off Season has over 30,000 followers.

Oh well.

The MINI managed to roll up 6.50 hours of top down driving for the month. It was cold a lot during the month. The year’s total was 209.75 hours; it was a warm Summer. The cumulative top down driving time is 294.25 hours.


The MINI now has 27,693 miles on the odometer.

Excitement
Last week, I was out running errands with the top up. It was 58F at the beach and overcast. I came home and found the building car entrance blocked by a Redondo Beach ladder fire truck and two police cars.

And I missed all of the excitement.

Later that day, I asked one of my neighbors what happened. He said someone had a small kitchen fire that produced a lot of smoke. Someone saw the smoke called the Fire Department. The police possibly showed up because all of the fresh donuts had been sold at the local donut shop or maybe they were bored.

On New Years’ Eve, actually it was early New Years’ Day; I went to Fatburger for a really late meal. They were open until 3:00 AM and I had a coupon for a free bag of fries that expired that night.

I was extremely fortunate to have been able to drive to Fatburger and back home without any problems. The fog was extremely thick; even with my fog lamps and head lights on in the MINI, I could barely see more than fifty yards.

Luckily, I know the way there and back very well.

Last bit or sip of excitement, I received some cocoa from one of my nieces for Christmas. I am not a hot chocolate drinking kind of guy, especially since the only milk in the flat is low fat milk and that is not the best for hot chocolate.

I drink iced decaf mocha from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf sometimes so I thought about trying some of my instant coffee with the cocoa powder.

I used hot coffee since I thought the hot water would dissolve the cocoa powder faster.

The mixture turned out wonderful. It was sweet, like me almost, and warm.

Thanks muchly Jessie.

University of Utah Football – Go Utes
Our Utes played Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl in El Paso on New Years’ Eve Day.

The Utes were three point underdogs. At one point, I thought the odds makers made correction predictions. This was right after Georgia Tech scored 14 points in less than a minute in the third quarter.

The Utes came back to tie the game in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter. They won the game in overtime with a final score of Utah 30 – Georgia Tech 27. Since the game was on national television [CBS], I don’t think there is much more that I could add about the game.

I will add that Utah’s win was the first win for the PAC 12 Conference in post season play this year.

Sweet.

Cinema
I did get out to the cinema last week and saw SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS.

I enjoyed the film. It was a nice Summer film that was released at the end of the year as an example of counterprogramming. It has a simple plot line of stopping Professor Morriarity or however his name is spelled. It is a good guy film; it doesn’t require a great deal of thought or understanding to enjoy the two plus hours you spent in the multiplex.

I plan to go see TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY when it goes into general release later this week. Doug saw the film with his movie club and they all loved it.

Doug and the Princess both recommended THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO to me. He’s seen it twice now, something he rarely does with films.

I also want to see a film called THE ARTIST. I am interested in the film because it is largely filmed as a silent movie.


Be well and stay happy.

Hiarcuts and Styling

Haircuts and Styling
I went to see Molly the Stylist for my monthly haircut. She says she styles my hair. In any event, I was due for a trim around the ears. I ran into three of my former students on Tuesday night.

One said my hair was starting to look on the shaggy side.

I wonder where Scooby Doo was.

The salon has a new receptionist. I think her name is Kirstiana. Molly had an assistant. It was the first time that I could remember her having one. Her name is Caitlin; well, I think that is how she would spell her name.

Caitlin shampooed my hair. This was the first time in four and a half years that someone other than Molly or her predecessor Amber has shampooed my hair. Eventually, Caitlin will become a stylist as well.


Molly raved about how wonderful the Hershey’s Chocolate Covered Almonds were. She took them home for Thanksgiving and shared them with her girlfriends and wine. Molly gave me a big thank you hug. Molly also liked her Christmas gift of Ethel M chocolates. She even shared them with Kirstiana and Caitlin.

Cinema
I went to see THE SKIN I LIVE IN based on Doug’s recommendation. It is a film by the great Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar.

It is a very impressive film. It is also not a film for the faint of heart. There is a fair amount of violence in the film including simulated rapes and drunken parties. I was surprised that I had only an “R” rating. I thought it should have carried a “NC-17” rating; but that is just me. The acting is very good with mostly a Spanish cast. The film is sort of a modern version of the Frankenstein story.

I liked the film and enjoyed it. It isn’t for everyone. If you like Almodovar, then you will probably like this film as well.

My GAMERA TRILOGY arrived thus afternoon. This is the Blue Ray HD version of the 1990’s copies of the 1960’s black and white original Gamera films. I hope I made the lineage clear.

This looks like the perfect set to have a movie marathon with on a cold and rainy day. I do have two weeks off starting next Saturday so one of those days could be perfect. Of course, I would have to spring for a bottle of sake.

Wondering why?
As I was driving to Molly’s salon on Tuesday, I missed a traffic light and had to stop. There were a couple of high school girls who crossed in front of my car. Their coats were longer than their shorty shorts. The temperature was a brisk 41F.


Hayden Panettiere, above, in shorty shorts.

Why would someone wear that short of an outfit in that cold?

I guess it was to gain attention or maybe a mild case of hypothermia.


Be well and stay happy.