Saturday, July 14, 2012
Another ad for "Single Payer?"
I spent an 1 1/2 hours on hold, ending in a 4-way (me, the pharmacist, and two reps from my insurance company). All to get 30-days worth of something to hold down my blood pressure...Irony?
Thursday, July 12, 2012
1-2-3 Test...Is this thing on...?
So here I am, a year and change since my last post. Now ensconced in the beautiful Willamette Valley of Oregon, leaving Alaska, and teaching, behind. There are some interesting things that have happened, and some more coming up, besides that political contest in November.
Life has been good, but there are so many things to talk about.
Do good things while I collect my thoughts. And that could take a while.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
A few things have changed...
...for instance, Genie and I have retired from teaching and moved from Wasilla, AK (formerly known as $arahPalindia) and gone off to Eugene Oregon, where progressivism is actually tolerated, and dare I say, nourished. We're close to the kids and grand kids, go to wineries (yum) and have real summers for the 1st time in about 30 years. Try an outdoors CHICAGO concert at 77 degrees, with stars overhead, and ice cold micro-brew in hand. Not happening in old AK, my friends!
Selling the Casa Siedler was a trial, and selling off most of our earthly possessions for about 10 cents-on-the-dollar nearly put me into the cardiac ward, but we did it, and strangely enough, I don't think about it at all anymore. So all of you that picture yourselves in a different place with less "stuff" and more of everything else, it can be done, and we've proved it. Our 960 square-foot condo seems to get bigger all the time, and Aly-the-dog has even gotten used to it. In fact, with 3 walks a day and a better food regimen, she's lost 5 pounds and I've gained five. Where's the justice in that?
I used to teach in a "portable" 300 yards from the staff kitchen. Now that I'm not working, I spend alot of time at home. I call it "refrigerator proximics." More later...
Selling the Casa Siedler was a trial, and selling off most of our earthly possessions for about 10 cents-on-the-dollar nearly put me into the cardiac ward, but we did it, and strangely enough, I don't think about it at all anymore. So all of you that picture yourselves in a different place with less "stuff" and more of everything else, it can be done, and we've proved it. Our 960 square-foot condo seems to get bigger all the time, and Aly-the-dog has even gotten used to it. In fact, with 3 walks a day and a better food regimen, she's lost 5 pounds and I've gained five. Where's the justice in that?
I used to teach in a "portable" 300 yards from the staff kitchen. Now that I'm not working, I spend alot of time at home. I call it "refrigerator proximics." More later...
I'm back...and here's what I have to say about GOP debates:
"If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. If you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon." - Mitt Romney, 11-12-11
"There are a number of ways to be smart about Iran, and a few ways to be stupid. The administration skipped all the ways to be smart." - Newt Gingrich, 11-12-11
I can't remember when I've heard that many unsubstantiated, indefensible, generic, pandering, non-specific and wholly insupportable criticisms of the guy in charge, who's foreign policy has been a boon to the respect and prestige of the US in the world, as opposed to the bane of Bush/Cheney.
"There are a number of ways to be smart about Iran, and a few ways to be stupid. The administration skipped all the ways to be smart." - Newt Gingrich, 11-12-11
I can't remember when I've heard that many unsubstantiated, indefensible, generic, pandering, non-specific and wholly insupportable criticisms of the guy in charge, who's foreign policy has been a boon to the respect and prestige of the US in the world, as opposed to the bane of Bush/Cheney.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Just a thought
...as we begin to liquidate our holdings here, after 32 years in Alaska. My bookshelves just walked out the door yesterday, for the sum of $155.00. If that wasn't bad enough on my psyche, I have given away most of my books, my precious books. It's not as though I owned a library of classical literature, although I did own English translations of both The Iliad and The Odyssey. These others were "classics"to my quirky and yet somewhat pedestrian tastes.
Authors like Martin Cruz Smith (Arkady, when is your next adventure?) and Patrick Tilley (Jesus as a time-traveling warrior from another planet)in his one true opus, "Mission." "Source," certainly James Michener's best work - and it was about archaeology! Ray Bradbury's "Golden Apples of the Sun," And of course the late Patrick O'Brian's 18-tome saga of "Lucky Jack" Aubrey of the Royal Navy. Julian Stockwin's Kydd series is the next best thing,and it, like the "Sharps Rifles series, has gone away as well. So many authors and books. Like friends, only reliable. On the eve of seeing O'Brian's "Master and Commander" leave my possession forever, I began to reread it, and I must say I could read it again, and again.
I've kept a few books, mostly on the Cold War and books that suit my growing humanistic philosophy, a few science books to be housed by my son the science guy.
And I have a "Nook," an e-book, which my wife tells me is all and more of what I want, and takes up a lot less space in our 960 square foot condo (I feel like I should only use the abbreviations "sq"and "ft"when referring to the condo, which of course is an abbreviation for the term "condominium"). In any case, the feeling you get when you give away all of your corporeal, material literature, and settle for "virtual" literature,is a sense, maybe ,not of death or dying, but certainly an adjustment to a new "plane of existence." I guess that's what retirement is, too.
Feel free to send me suggestions from fiction (especially historical fiction), pop science, and history. If I cannot download it onto my Nook, maybe I can sneak out and buy it in its corporeal form.
Posted by ~Bill at 5:31 PM 0 comments
Authors like Martin Cruz Smith (Arkady, when is your next adventure?) and Patrick Tilley (Jesus as a time-traveling warrior from another planet)in his one true opus, "Mission." "Source," certainly James Michener's best work - and it was about archaeology! Ray Bradbury's "Golden Apples of the Sun," And of course the late Patrick O'Brian's 18-tome saga of "Lucky Jack" Aubrey of the Royal Navy. Julian Stockwin's Kydd series is the next best thing,and it, like the "Sharps Rifles series, has gone away as well. So many authors and books. Like friends, only reliable. On the eve of seeing O'Brian's "Master and Commander" leave my possession forever, I began to reread it, and I must say I could read it again, and again.
I've kept a few books, mostly on the Cold War and books that suit my growing humanistic philosophy, a few science books to be housed by my son the science guy.
And I have a "Nook," an e-book, which my wife tells me is all and more of what I want, and takes up a lot less space in our 960 square foot condo (I feel like I should only use the abbreviations "sq"and "ft"when referring to the condo, which of course is an abbreviation for the term "condominium"). In any case, the feeling you get when you give away all of your corporeal, material literature, and settle for "virtual" literature,is a sense, maybe ,not of death or dying, but certainly an adjustment to a new "plane of existence." I guess that's what retirement is, too.
Feel free to send me suggestions from fiction (especially historical fiction), pop science, and history. If I cannot download it onto my Nook, maybe I can sneak out and buy it in its corporeal form.
Posted by ~Bill at 5:31 PM 0 comments
Saturday, February 12, 2011
EEK! Stowaway rat delays Alaska Airlines flight
The Associated Press
Published: February 11th, 2011 10:26 PM
Last Modified: February 11th, 2011 10:27 PM
SEATTLE -- Alaska Airlines had to delay a flight about to leave Seattle-Tacoma International Airport when a rat was seen scurrying in the cabin.
The airline says the flight from Seattle to Denver had just pulled away from the gate Thursday morning when the stowaway was spotted. The 737 jetliner returned to the terminal, and passengers and crew boarded another plane about 90 minutes later.
Airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan says the plane won't be returned to service until maintenance workers make sure the rat didn't damage equipment or chew any wires -- and an exterminator certifies the plane is rodent-free.
Egan says workers also are trying to figure out how the rat got aboard. She says in cold weather, "sometimes rodents can seek shelter in strange places."
________________________
My response?
Flight Attendant: "We don't see many rats flying with Alaska Airlines!"
Rat: "With these prices and this service, I'm not a bit surprised."
The Associated Press
Published: February 11th, 2011 10:26 PM
Last Modified: February 11th, 2011 10:27 PM
SEATTLE -- Alaska Airlines had to delay a flight about to leave Seattle-Tacoma International Airport when a rat was seen scurrying in the cabin.
The airline says the flight from Seattle to Denver had just pulled away from the gate Thursday morning when the stowaway was spotted. The 737 jetliner returned to the terminal, and passengers and crew boarded another plane about 90 minutes later.
Airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan says the plane won't be returned to service until maintenance workers make sure the rat didn't damage equipment or chew any wires -- and an exterminator certifies the plane is rodent-free.
Egan says workers also are trying to figure out how the rat got aboard. She says in cold weather, "sometimes rodents can seek shelter in strange places."
________________________
My response?
Flight Attendant: "We don't see many rats flying with Alaska Airlines!"
Rat: "With these prices and this service, I'm not a bit surprised."
Friday, February 11, 2011
So sorry to have been...
...gone so long, but really, I've discovered an activity that has been so addictive, it reminds me why I always put down all the "Dungeons and Dragons" geeks back in the day. I am now an on-line commenter, involved, thus far in the on-line versions of our local Valley Frontiersman, and the Anchorage Daily News. What's worse, it seems I've been accepted by these denizens of the daily (or thrice weekly, in the case of the Frontiersman). In a way, it's like being an accepted member of NYC's "unter-subway community" of homeless, yet at home souls. We don't have the power to change anything on the surface, but we're still here!
I haven't commented on some of the publications I read: HuffPo, Daily Kos, The Nation and others, only because they want you to access through "Facebook"and I haven't capitulated to that extent - yet.
You can get involved yourselves, or you can check on what bon mots I may toss in from time-to-time. You will easily guess my "handle" if you been reading my blog. Both Pubs are on-line. From time to time I will endeavor to share some of what goes on in this small pocket of the on-line under-belly. I wonder if in our new home, the Eugene Register Guard newspaper has such a place?
I haven't commented on some of the publications I read: HuffPo, Daily Kos, The Nation and others, only because they want you to access through "Facebook"and I haven't capitulated to that extent - yet.
You can get involved yourselves, or you can check on what bon mots I may toss in from time-to-time. You will easily guess my "handle" if you been reading my blog. Both Pubs are on-line. From time to time I will endeavor to share some of what goes on in this small pocket of the on-line under-belly. I wonder if in our new home, the Eugene Register Guard newspaper has such a place?
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