Book Board Chat

In many places in the US there is no home delivery. There are community mailboxes near the entrance to sub-divisions.

First thing I remember about the war was my dad coming home in the middle of the night sometime in 1945. That's when we met.

Happy Birthday BOB. Turning 64 beats any alternative that I can think of.

I'm a big fan of parsnips too but they're very hard to find her in central California. They're also quite expensive if one does find them. It seems to me that when we lived in New England they were about the price of carrots.

Today we will continue the great Christmas tree debate. For the first time in 30 years we won't have kids or grandkids here for Christmas so I suggested we just put up one of the small artificial trees we have and leave it at that. We have always had a very large fresh tree and my wife insists that we continue the tradition.

I'm going to lose this argument, but I'm not going down without a fight.

No, it's not just you. But we all just have to adjust with the times.

And in book related news, this is the 50th anniversary of the death of both C.S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley.

I was playing billiards in the Oregon State Student Union when the announcement of the shooting came over the PA system. The place emptied out as everyone headed for the student lounge to gather around the small TV there.

jude...I hope that school isn't struck by lightning. Everyone knows that God loves the Beavers.

Those doing drug testing have a growing business. Our friends son is subject to random drug testing. He was living in AZ but moved to WA and forgot to notify the company that does the tests. He got a 24 hour notice of a test and had to fly back to AZ to take the test or he would get an automatic fail.

Lots of changes coming in the medical profession. I have a friend that owns a small medical practice in town. Yesterday she got a letter informing her that beginning next year doctors will be subject to random drug tests.

Bill - The PAC-12 is not just a football conference, they play many sports and own way more national championships than whoever is in 2nd place. A well rounded conference.

And yes, USC is a completely different team without Kiffin.

Besides Georgia v Auburn the other game of the day is being played right now with USC v Stanford of the Conference of Champions.

"The idea that no one is perfect is a view most commonly held by people with no grandchildren."

My father dropped out of college after his junior year to join the service and was with Patton's armored divisions until the end of the war. I know little about just what he did as he rarely talked about his experience. He did have a lifelong back problem that was the result of helping lift a trailer off of some soldiers after a wreck.

I have a retired laptop with XP which I've kept around for a backup. My wife gave me a calendar project to do for the family so I tried to load my print shop program on my Win7 machine. No dice. Loaded up the XP laptop and the project was done in no time.

Tuesday we had our kitten spayed and they put that cone collar thing on her. She was really miserable. She's a very small cat and she could barely eat with the collar on. Today I decided to take it off for a while and keep an eye on her. It's been off for several hours and she's a happy camper and has made no attempt to get at her stitches.

Sam...Sounds like a great opportunity. You'll knock 'em dead.

We haven't had a trick or treater since the little girl up the road turned about 7 and started going into town to beg. She's 34 now.

Please do not open any email attachments unless you are 100% sure they are legitimate..

That alone is about all one needs to know about avoiding nearly all threats.

Here's a story about the suspect pet treats.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/10/23/jerky-treats-made-in-china-kill-600-dogs-in-mysterious-outbreak-fda-says/

You should only rely on one source of information. It's like the person who only has one watch, he always knows exactly what time it is. The person with 2 or more timepieces is never sure of the exact time.

Was the phone conversation with the Philippines?

Sam... It may not be all countries but it sure was where my daughter was going.

I learned something about international travel yesterday. It's information probably not of interest to many. One can't travel to most countries on a one way ticket.

That was a very expensive lesson for me to learn. I was surprised to learn from a United International ticket agent that more folks try to do that that I would imagine.

Surprised to see Uncle Remus on the list. I suspect if the list were from the past 50 years it might have dropped off.

On top of Old Smokey?

Mystery...Were those albino squirrels wearing their seatbelts?

King Pickle looks like a young Bill Gates.

My doctor said that one must not have had an outbreak of shingles during the previous two years before one can have the vaccine.

When I saw what my wife went through a couple of years ago with shingles I ran and got the vaccination. Fortunately our insurance paid. Right now there are pharmacies here offering the shot for $50.

I'm pretty sure you got one stamp for a dime spent.

A Christmas club is a really dumb investment which we have been using for many years! It seems that when the funds are released coincides with when our homeowners insurance is due and just before property taxes are due and that's what we use it for.

Not to pick too many nits, but today is Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance which used to be just Patriot Day before Obama started messing with it.

Patriots' Day is sometime in April and celebrates the battles at Lexington & Concord.

My youngest granddaughter did call me yesterday and wished me a happy grandparents day. Oh, and while she had me on the phone she thought it appropriate to remind me that she would turn 9 on Friday.

The message I sometimes get is "wordpress is unavailable or over capacity..." Usually a couple of tries does the trick.

Schools here are air conditioned, but we live in what would be a desert without irrigation. We start mid-August and go through the first week of June. We get all of Thanksgiving week on as well as the Monday after Thanksgiving off so that more teachers will show up.

We get 3 weeks at Christmas. Originally this was because so many of the students went to Mexico for the holidays and wouldn't return on time. Not so many go anymore but the three weeks remain.

Just a reminder, it's no longer proper to wear white.

If I remember correctly (certainly not a sure thing) my mother used to have a hanky drawer in her dresser.

If you want to hear visitors mangle place names talk to visitors to Hawaii.

I'll accept Howard Dean as an expert on that judgement.

Kathleen...He hit a cool day in Vegas. Last month when I drove there to pick up our granddaughters the high was 117 and the low 97!

Kathleen...We made the mistake of visiting New Orleans in August once. The French Quarter was all but shut down and the weather was nearly unbearable. Maybe he should swing north and hit NO another time.

The boards are back up now.

Diane...We pray for you during these trying times.

Jim...Results with knee replacements seem to be all over the place. I've known several folks that have had them and after a couple of months of rehab have had no further problems. On the other hand, my uncle had one in his mid 70s and has had nothing but trouble. He says he's had just under 20 operations to try to correct the problem and things still aren't 100% 8 years later.

I hope someone can figure out a solution to your wife's problem. Don't give up.

How good gps works also depends on which gps one uses. They all don't use the same maps. I've never had google maps lead me astray.

Perhaps you've hit on the main reason I've grown lazy & stupid in my old age.

I don't know how I ever got along without the GPS on my phone. This year so far I've used it to navigate around, San Jose, Kansas City, Honolulu, and various points near here but unfamiliar to me.

Beth...The same here. The one thing I rarely do on my smartphone is make phone calls. I use maybe 20 minutes in the average month. I do use it at home to make long distance calls though since those calls are free.

I find the appointment book with reminders invaluable. Much handier than the calender on the bulletin board at home.

The advantage of twitter (or other aggregators) is that you don't have to go to so many sites, you get them all in one place and can just read what is of interest. All the major news sources as well most of the minor ones as well as their reporters are on twitter. It works sort of like an RSS feed.

If there is something of continuing interest that is not covered in your local press you can follow the reporter in the area that covers the event. For example I follow the sports reporters from the Oregonian since I'm interested in Oregon State Sports. During the Zimmerman trial I followed Jeff Weiner of the Orlando Sentinel who was in the courtroom every day.

Of course, this is only for those of us that are somewhat news junkies. Not everyone is that interested in much of the news.

It's sad, but one will get a more in depth understanding of news events from twitter than from reading newspapers if one follows the right folks.

Every morning a bunch of us meet at a local coffee shop at 8:00 am and solve the problems of the day. While there I scan the Fresno Bee and it is rare that I find a story on national or international news that I don't already know about, and usually know a lot more about that what the paper reports.

The half hour evening new is nearly worthless, IMO. But the same reporters that get 30 seconds on those shows have blogs where they report the same stories, but in much more depth. Same with the AP reporters or the FOX News or CNN reporters.

Happy birthday to Eileen's sister!

Kathleen...There is practically no one that thinks that Trayvon deserved to die for any reason, and to say that those that think George acted lawfully hold that belief is disingenuous at best.

1mur·der noun \ˈmər-dər\

Definition of MURDER

1
: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

I think the Dev Haskell books are still on sale on Amazon, for Kindle anyway. One is free and a couple are 99 cents.

I've been reading the Dev Haskell series by Mike Faricy. I first stumbled upon them via a free offer from Amazon.

Dev is a 3rd rate PI with a 3rd rate lawyer and the books seem to follow a formula. Dev get's a client, Dev gets in more trouble than does the client, Dev gets arrested and/or hospitalized, things work out and Dev is a hero.

Fun reads actually.

What's different about Florida?

Beth - How do you know he wasn't doing anything wrong? He had a past history of burglary or receiving stolen goods although that evidence wasn't presented at trial. The evidence in the case indicated that it was most likely Travon that attacked George who was observing him from a distance. George certainly acted stupidly, but that's not against the law.

Helen - That's true. He's suing NBC and maybe the state of Florida.

Angela Corey should be sanctioned for bringing this to trial in the first place. There was no case.

A birth certificate, SS # should be sufficient to identify you.

It is is you march into your SS office. If you want to do things online you must go through a more thorough identification verification process.

If I remember correctly one can't just open an account on the SSA website and begin using it. I had to register on the site and then wait for them to mail me a pin to use before I could actually apply.

Oops, hit wrong key again. Thanks for keeping us up to date on the boys.

kathleen...I'm home. Drove to LV yesterday and home today and I'm beat. This morning our eldest (37) had an accident on a long board and ended up in emergency room so we were late leaving to come home. She got a few stitches and some antibiotics and all is ok. Was 117 yesterday with a low in the low 90s so didn't spend a lot of time outside. It's about 110 here so not much different except that here in the early evening it drops to low 70s.

Sunday I am going to Nevada to pick up our granddaughters. Yesterday the news reported that the temperature might be 120 and break a record. Today I see the forecast is for only 117 so it won't be so bad.

Oh, the game is played in the gym where the movie Hoosiers was filmed.

Helen...I'm pretty sure that wasn't the WNBA. It's the Hoosiers Reunion Classic All Star game played somewhere in Indiana. I think the players are girls that just graduated from Indiana high schools.

RIP Vince Flynn @ 47, much too young. One of my favorite authors.

If you enjoy sports the place to park your TV is on the College World Series. Nearly every game has been a nail biter.

Besides growing watermelon, I've also got a few cantaloupes growing. I don't know why. I live in the middle of a large commercial cantaloupe area and there are often cases of them for the taking at the coffee shop I frequent every morning.

I wonder how much where one lives affects ones ability to get good watermelon. We've had 4 so far this year and they've all been excellent. I think the first couple were from Mexico and the next ones maybe from Arizona.

This year I've planted a decent sized watermelon patch and now have melons from the size of golf balls to the size of footballs. Last year I only planted a few and the critters ate nearly all of them right down to a small piece of the rind.

It's not fixed yet.

I was wondering why scanning the negatives wouldn't work as well as Jim's white paper & window & natural light method. After seeing many examples of Jim's work I certainly am not one to fault his selection of methods though.

Bob...I don't think it's a holiday in Bangladesh.

Just today I was looking at a list of 65 Books You Need To Read In Your 20s.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/doree/books-you-need-to-read-in-your-20s

At the beginning of the list the comment was, " Even if you read them in high school or college, you’ll have a different perspective on them now that you’re Out In The World."

Helen...I think your post was meant for me. If so I didn't get a message and my name is David.

Just finished shucking a mess of peas from the garden for dinner. Last year I planted them too late and the heat got to them.

I've been using Irfanview for years. It's free and easy to use.

http://www.irfanview.com/main_download_engl.htm

One of the things I look for when buying a laptop is a button that will disable the touchpad. The HP laptops I've had all have that feature. I have a small mouse with a retractable cord that I carry when traveling as I've never been comfortable with the touchpad.

Bob Newhart was great in the movie Hell is for Heroes. In the movie he did one of his telephone bits from the front where he pretended to call HQ on a field phone that was tapped by the Nazis but not actually connected to HQ.

Bugs Bunny is 75 today. He doesn't look a day over 50.

Best of luck to Swifty. The early years will be difficult but also a lot of fun.

Carol...Because Saturday isn't any different than any other day?

That's sure true Paula. There are a bunch of lawyers playing on the offensive & defensive lines in the NFL and I believe there is or was a dentist.

Kathleen... Unfortunately the trip wasn't a vacation or pleasure trip but we did get a little free time.

Patsy...Don't know where everyone else is, but I'm on the lanai in Hawaii.

I'm no longer angry with AA. Later yesterday they let me check in and print boarding passes.

Grrrr. Trying to check in online for an AA flight. I go through pages of picking seats and filling in all sort of other information and then at the end it says check-in can't be completed, check in at airport.

We're getting a pounding rain with some hail, very unusual for here. We can certainly use the rain but I have things just barely up in the garden. I hope they survive.

Weather here in central California is bordering on nice. My corn is coming up nicely and today I have to soak the whole garden as we're leaving for NV for a few days to visit the grandkids.

A Happy Birthday to Diane.

jude...Yes, that's a problem here in CA. But I go to NV often, next week even, and I've seen a few there but they're disappearing.

Where does one find a 100 watt bulb to use in those ovens? My granddaughters have one and use the Jiffy cake mixes.

Learned a new word today, one I've never even heard before.

Here's my daffodils.

http://dospalos.org/~stamphick/temp/dafodils.JPG

St. Francis of Assissi is the saint of animals, or so I learned when daughter was going to Catholic school On his day the kids brought their pets to be blessed by the parish priest.

I'm also heard that he was given a mission from Jesus to restore the Church which might have something to do with the current selection.

Kathleen...You do realize that he was speaking of the dictatorship in Argentina?

He also worked to recover the church’s traditional political influence in society, but his outspoken criticism of [Argentina] President Cristina Kirchner couldn’t stop her from imposing socially liberal measures that are anathema to the church, from gay marriage and adoption to free contraceptives for all.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/13/pope-francis-i-first-catholic-pontiff-americas/

He also thinks that social outreach is the job of the Church. Doesn't sound like what we in the US would describe as a liberal.

He's a Jesuit which I think is a good choice.

Since Jim is off to the Orient I guess it fall on me to remind everyone that this month Friday the 13th falls on a Wednesday.

There was a $5 stamp issued in a series honoring the Columbian Exposition in 1893. Inflation adjusted that may be the highest denomination ever printed. There are others.

Don't know exactly, but there are stamps for priority & express mailing whatever that is now.