Author Archives: Dick

A Day in the Life — Day 1-10

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Didya ever wonder…?

The truck developed a second issue right after Anne arrived here in South Puffin.

Flat tire.

Really flat.

All the way around.

I felt around the tread and found a screw. Knowing that one shouldn’t use screws to plug the holes in tires (they make a clickety racket underway and the heads wear down soooo fast), I stopped at the tire guy over on 107th Street to get the tire plugged. He, of course, wanted to sell me new tires. The truck rubber is older than I realized but they don’t have that many miles; I bought them in 2009, some 20K miles ago. Or fewer. They haven’t been terribly satisfactory since new, thanks to the slow air loss from all of them. I’m still unsure if that’s the tires, the rims, or the valves which have always been suspect. Anne’s Honda tires lost air, too. I always figured we got a bad case of tire valves but Anne has BFGs, too. Hmmm.

She was driving the truck and complained that the brake pedal was down to the floor. Really low fluid. Puddle. It had a leak somewhere.

Have I mentioned how much I like groveling around in the gravel under a truck?

Chevrolet trucks have an online reputation of rusted out brake lines. Another brake line had rusted out.

Note to truck owners: when one goes, replace all of them, front to back.

The shops here in South Puffin are busy and expensive. I opted for immediate and cheap.

3-Wheeled Chevy PickupStoner Steve has been a mechanic here for not quite as long as most folks can remember. He works out of a shipping container over by the docks. It’s a neat container with an air compressor, laptop station, parts shelves, and tools scattered around. Stoner Steve promised to replace the brake line the next day.

If I had an inverted flare plug I could simply block off the rear brakes which would make driving the truck to Steve’s way less worrisome. Who needs rear brakes, right? Still, we took the truck(s) over to Steve who wasn’t in his container, then shopped and came back, all without touching the brakes. OK, I had to use them on Joe’s truck, but I got from here to Steve’s container with very careful timing and a little bit of low gear on mine.

He called the parts place with an order and I made a run to buy the 3/16″ lines and rubber brake hoses and fittings he wanted.

Steve uses a nearby loading dock as his lift but he spent a couple of days “unable get the truck up there” first because there was a forklift on it and then someone else had parked on it. He did replace one brake line. It wasn’t the one that ruptured.

I spent an hour or so with Steve every day. I chased parts. I brought beer. I did see his legs sticking out from under the truck once.

Thanksgiving came and went. Black Friday came and went. Small Business Saturday came and went. After 10 days, Steve still had one brake line to do (that would be the one that ruptured), plus bleeding the brakes.

Joe and I drove over to the container on Sunday. Keys were in the truck and I drove it (very slowly and carefully) back here. I was tied up myself the next day so Day 11 came and went. Jacked the truck up in the driveway. Pulled the rear wheel. Looked at the rusty line. Chevrolet uses 1/4″ brake lines to carry the load from the front to the back of the truck, not the 3/16″ Steve ordered.

Have I mentioned how much I like groveling around in the gravel under a truck?

I made a run to the parts store to buy a 1/4″ brake line and fittings.

Installed same.

I HAVE BRAKES!

Now, what do I do with all these extra 3/16″ parts?

 

As Seen in the New York Times

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Going negative. I subscribe to the New York Times’ own daily email story aggregator. The New York Times is (almost) the most often quoted journal of the liberal left. I put in the “almost” qualifier because anecdotally it’s a tossup between that venerable newspaper and the Daily Kos.

The New York TimesThe New York Times has had hundreds of stories about the health care act this year alone. Many were positive. Many pointed out its shortcomings. Stories about the flaws are coming faster. In fact, in the last month the newspaper has flogged Obamacare as its lead story nine times in the email notifications. Every one of those stories outlined growing problems in the law and its implementation.

Saturday, October 26, 2013
Today’s Headlines: Promised Fix for Health Site Could Squeeze Some Users

Thursday, November 7, 2013
Today’s Headlines: Despite Fumbles, Obama Defends Health Care Law

Saturday, November 9, 2013
Today’s Headlines: Cuts in Hospital Subsidies Threaten Safety-Net Care

Thursday, November 14, 2013
Today’s Headlines: With Enrollment Slow, Some Democrats Back Change in Health Law

Friday, November 15, 2013
Today’s Headlines: Obama Moves to Avert Cancellation of Insurance

Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Today’s Headlines: Perks Ease Way in Health Plans for Lawmakers

Thursday, November 28, 2013
Today’s Headlines: Online Health Law Sign-Up Is Delayed for Small Business

Friday, November 29, 2013
Today’s Headlines: Medicaid Growth Could Aggravate Doctor Shortage (Under Obamacare, a wave of additional Americans will soon be covered by Medicaid, a program that has struggled with a shortage of doctors willing to accept its low reimbursement rates and red tape.)

Saturday, November 30, 2013
Today’s Headlines: Health Care Site Rushing to Make Fixes by Sunday

Those nine headlines — that’s thirty percent of the lead stories this month — here were uniformly negative. That’s telling us something.

 

Call Your Mother

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If your mother’s in the same room with you, stop reading now!

Josh Seftel’s story (A Mother, a Son, and an iPad, on CBS Sunday Morning this week) hit all the right cords for me. Go watch it now. I’ll wait.

<drumming fingers…>

My mom developed lung cancer, what the docs thought was non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). About 85% to 90% of lung cancers are non-small cell. She was a smoker for close to 50 years but quit in the 80s.

She tried a variety of treatments and ended up in a drug trial for one of the then-new NSCLC regimens. It seemed to work; she was in remission for almost five years. Then it metastasized to her brain.

Mary HarperShe did chemo. She did radiation. Her hair fell out. She borrowed a blonde “fright wig” from the oncology center in Key West.

I was extraordinarily lucky. See, since I’m self-unemployed as a writer, photographer, boat builder, and engineering consultant, I can arrange my schedule to suit myself. I spent several weeks down here just visiting when she was dying but still comfortable enough to visit.

We caught up. We told the family stories and the family lies. We shopped. We read. We went to a couple of art shows. We played cards and watched tube. We even went out on Joe’s boat.

I was blessed.

My mom died in 2002 about three weeks after I left; my dad died unexpectedly in 2005.

Now I wonder how much I missed, simply because the technology we take for granted today just wasn’t there.

Skype™ was first released in 2003 and sold to eBay about six months after my dad died but I doubt I was even aware of it for another couple of years after that. I don’t think we started using it before 2011. Now it’s an everyday thing.

I “teleconference” with clients over Skype™ now, which is a PITA because it means I have to put on a shirt. With a collar.

A business in Oregon just interviewed my friend (and North Puffin’s mayor and general roue) Beau Pinder when he was looking for a job out west. Reporters use it more and more to “phone in” stories or to interview news makers.

Anne and I have Skyped™ when she was up north and I down here. Rufus and I used it when he had to head north and I needed to know what to pack in his truck. Nancy and I Skype™ almost every day.

Mr. Seftel uses it to talk with his mother.

“My mommy refuses to connect to the Interwebs,” Liz Arden said. “She doesn’t want any form of computer, nor an Internet account, nor a talking TV.

“I have told her about Skype™ and how easy it is for me to sit on a computer or in front of my tablet and communicate and how lovely it is to see the face of the person I’m talking to. She dislikes computers and doesn’t ‘hear’ how easy tablets and Chromebooks are to set up and use.”

I understand that. My mom refused to learn how a gas pump worked. Mr. Seftel’s mother still seems to have some technical difficulties with her iPad.

Oh, sure, I know all the reasons from technical to political not to use Skype™. <shrug> So use Facetime, or Facebook, or hangout on Google, or ICQ, or ooVoo, or any of a dozen other lesser-known services.

Go skype your mother. She’s waiting.

 

Giving Thanks

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Today is America’s primary pagan festival, celebrated to show love to the gods for a bountiful harvest on a New England day in which fields are now mostly covered in snow and which George Washington proclaimed as a day of thanks as a national remembrance.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness’.”

While it is easy for this curmudgeonly writer to kvetch about the corruption and thievery stretching from here to Washington or to fret that my truck needs new brake lines and my little house needs new shingles, those are just everyday irritants and (thankfully) I know how to fix them.

I am thankful I have a white truck. Not to mention a (topless)(white) car. And that Anne has white car.

I am thankful my grandfather at age 94 decided to live out his very good life in the Keys.

I am thankful I started my life as an engineer and am now spending some of it as an artist.

I am thankful we will have friends here today.

I am thankful my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren are happy, healthy, and will be well fed again today.

I am thankful Anne is here today and will be here tomorrow.

I am thankful for Anne and for Nancy, two loving, caring, beautiful ladies. I am blessed.

And I have pah!

Ben Franklin thought the turkey should be America’s bird so I’m thankful to have found a big inflatable turkey in a local yard. The original Thanksgiving Perspective is here.

ahh, supper