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-dating

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.