Monthly Archives: April 2014

Jeran Daniel Lynn

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Jeran was 14-years-old the day before yesterday, the day after we got home from our trip to California and Nevada. He’s grown almost like a weed, still is, and he’s done it all by absolutely refusing to eat anything green. I don’t know if there’s a name for that kind of diet, but there should be since there are names for pretty much everything. Perhaps Antivegan would work. Or, “The GING Diet.” Yes, I like that one. That’s Green Is Not Good (unless it’s lime sherbet). He’s a meat and potatoes kind of guy, after my own heart. But, I like mine with asparagus.

From this …
jeran&dad… to this …

DSC_9633… in only  441,504,000 seconds. A mere blink of the eye, so to speak.

He’s a great kid who will one day be a great man.

Next year he will join his older siblings at St. Helens High School, from whence his Mother and Father both graduated.

A long time ago.

We’re proud of Jeran.

Home! At Last!

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Thanks to Diane’s superior driving skills, we made it home safely yesterday right around 1730. That’s the time our choice of GPS guidance systems, WAZE, told us we would be home.

Things went just great, even when I was allowed to drive for a short time, then we got to Portland. It was like LA all over again, except the traffic jam wasn’t moving at 50-60 mph. It actually came to a standstill quite often. Oh, yes. There was another stoppage on Highway 58 because a truck, filled with hospital supplies, and trinkets, apparently didn’t believe one of those critical yellow road signs warning him that the next corner was a 45 mph one. Consequently, the truck tipped over, did a really nice job on the guard rail, to the point where it looked like he could have easily continued over into the adjoining canyon. When we arrived in line, we were about 6 cars and 4 trucks behind the wreck, and only had to wait about 30 minutes for the wrecker to get the truck back on its wheels, allowing traffic to flow once again. While waiting, everyone exited their vehicles and wandered around on the normally active highway.

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There are no photos of the wrecked truck because I was driving and Diane is afraid of my camera. It scares her. So, you’ll just have to let your minds run wild with what it looked like. When we went by, the truck was in the far left lane, going our direction, against the guard rail. The back of the trailer was still attached, but there was an awful lot of daylight showing through parts of it when it looked as though it had been sliced open by a really large P-38 can opener. Just a brief glance, then we were on our way.

The normal 5 minute right through Portland took us a minimum of 30 minutes, which actually wasn’t too bad. Thankfully, we were going north on I-5 at this point, with our sights set on I-405 that loops west of the city. The vast majority of traffic was heading out of town, to the south, so we only had to fend off a slew of Washington Dwellers who were in a hurry to get home from work. It’s a daily ‘thing’.

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IMG_0272Once through, it was clear sailing all the way home on Highway 30. We just got in the slow lane, put the Buick in neutral, and got sucked along with those Columbia County Dwellers who were escaping the big city. Consequently, for the trip from Susanville, we averaged 25 mpg. Getting to I-5 over Highway 58, we averaged 28.1 mpg which is the best we’ve ever done without lying about it.

We stopped for a few necessities at Safeway, stopped to greet Diane’s Mom, Jean, then went home to let the dogs loose. They were happy to see us, but not totally destitute for attention because we have wonderful children who visit them often in our absence.

Now I must quit and do errands, and mow the lawn.

For All The Susan’s, Pizza Lovers, and Idol Fans

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We drove out of the Hilton driveway at 0900 this morning, right on time. Really. It was the time we picked to leave. I believe this is another First for us … actually right on time. On my way to get the Buick so I could stage it for loading, my new publisher friend, Paul, and his wife, Doreen, stopped to greet me on their way to play golf and ask if I got the cards her left. I hadn’t done that yet, but I did. Diane and I both find that meeting him is kind of an omen. We just don’t know what kind, yet.

We made it out of Las Vegas without mishap, which was pretty amazing, then Diane drove her 200 miles which placed us a little north of Tonopah. If you do a little math on a map, you may figure out that Tonopah is more than 200 miles from Las Vegas, but don’t tell Diane. We were looking for the Subway Sandwich shop for lunch, but drove all the way through town without seeing it. So, she pulled over to the side of the road and made us PB&J sandwiches. I got apples and our bag of grapes for dessert, Diane got peppermint patties and carrots. We were set, so I crawled into the driver’s seat, readjusted all the mirrors, the seat, and steering wheel the clawed my way back into the northbound traffic on US 395. It wasn’t too difficult because there wasn’t a lot of it.

I have to mention that while Diane was driving, we drove passed Cheech AFB and she was affected by all the UMDE fowling the air. Cheech is, perhaps, the main facility where Unmanned Drone pilots are trained. It may also be the facility from which all the overseas drones are controlled. I don’t know that, of course, but it could be true. We do know they fly drones because you can watch them takeoff and land quite often. Just like the ones you see on TV. The “E” on UMDE is for exhaust, of course. It’s probably not true that it really bothers her, but she started sneezing right about then. So, that could also be true.

I drove my allotted 200 miles, that actually worked out to about 170, then Diane exerted her authority and recaptured the driver’s seat and drove the rest of the way to Susanville. I expertly guided us to our abode for the evening, the High Country Inn. Nice facilities. Overpriced, I thought, until I paid $18 for a medium pizza that was about the size of a Papa Murphy’s small pizza. We can get their mediums for $5. Once in a while. A caveat to this is that tonight’s pizza was a pretty awesome hand-tossed piece of culinary wonderment. I ate all four of my pieces but Diane stopped at three. She has one left for breakfast, lucky duck.

Now we’re just lounging in the room watching American Idol. So far our favorites are Alex and Sam. We loved the guitars. Nice.

The Las Vegas Monorail & Jersey Boys

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Today was a perfecting ending to a very relaxing vacation.

No, wait! The perfecting ending is when we arrive home safely. That hasn’t happened, yet.

It was, however, a terrific day before we begin our grueling trip home. The decision was to make it a two-day run … about 500 miles segment. That means, of course, that I will be allowed to drive, more than once, time permitting.

Now, about today.

It started with a very nutritious breakfast of oat mill smothered in brown sugar, and a couple pieces of toast. We don’t usually eat that hearty at home because we never seem to both be up at a reasonable hour when food is necessary. A typical morning sees me with a banana and a raspberry yogurt somewhere between 0600-0730. Diane doesn’t get up until 1000 or so. By then I’m ready for lunch, but she hasn’t had breakfast, or coffee. Because of the latter, I’m not allowed to make noise until the first cup is poured. But, that’s an old story that’s been told many times previously.

After breakfast, we bundled up in our swimming suits and headed for the pool. We can see it from our window, fifteen floors down, and knew it wasn’t crowded. We selected two lounge chairs away from the crowd, composed of the other 5 people near the pool, reclined, fired up our iPads and just layer there in the shade. Yes, the shade. I’m not allowed to lay in the sun, even when I had apply spf 50 over the majority of my body. The reason is because I tend to develop little crispy spots that, left alone, can turn cancerous. So, unlike many things in my life, I’m pretty careful when it comes to the sun. Mainly I’m careful because I have Diane in my head asking if I’ve but on sunscreen, especially my little ears. Since I cannot lie to the voice in my head, I surely won’t lie to her in person, so I just do it. Admittedly, there are times when I have to say “no” and go back to make myself shiny with sunscreen.

We laid on our lounges long enough for the sun to make it’s way past the palm trees and shower us with glorious sunlight. Glorious, cancer-causing sunlight. Once I started sweating, I decided to immerse myself in the pool, just once. I stood up, sucked in my stomach, for the benefit of all those around me, and walked calmly to the stairs where I bravely stood on the first step and suppressed the urge to get right back out. It was cold. For some stupid reason, I thought it might be like Mexico where the pool is heated even though it’s 80-90 degrees outside. Silly me.

I stood there a bit, then bravely took another step, then another, until the water reached a level around the top of my swimming suit. This means, of course, that tender parts of me that like to remain warm, were now cold and making an attempt retract themselves back into my body cavity. Not all of them made it. I stood there building up my resolve to fully immerse my entire body, but it took a while. After a while, it became evident to my tender nether regions that clinging to the hope they could alter my gender was a total waste of time. So, they relaxed and descended once again to the proper place.

Then I took a breath and relaxed my legs, lowering my normally buoyant body into the water up to my neck. As soon as I could breath again, I made a few swimming-like strokes into the pool, finally getting my head wet. I had done it! I was totally wet. Objective met.

So I got back out and returned to my assigned lounge, next to Diane. I stayed there until she determined we’d been there long enough. It was that, or perhaps embarrassment because I was laying there with a towel covering all exposed parts of my body. Not normal for most people next to a swimming pool, I know, but t was comfy.

Back in the room we showered, then each ate a couple of hotdogs in preparation for an exciting end to the day. We had tickets for the Jersey Boys. We just had to arrive at least an hour early to trade our vouchers for real tickets. That meant we had to be there by 1730.

Since we chose to use public transportation for our trip to the Paris Casino, we left around 1530 to catch the monorail. It’s not a long trip, so we were at the Paris stop around 1600. From there it’s about a 1.5 mile walk through Bally’s Casino to the Paris ticket office. Getting the tickets that quickly meant we had a 2-hour wait for the doors to open so we had to entertain ourselves.

Gambling doesn’t interest us, so we found a venue with chairs situated along the main thoroughfare, bought a couple of large $6 root beers then sat there watching people for two hours. We even talked. A lot. It was good, and the time went quickly. An incredible array of people passed us by.

Finally it was almost 1800 so we extracted ourselves from the chairs and headed for the theater.

Once there, we were allowed into the area where drinks and snacks were served for enormous prices. We weren’t thirsty, after downing those 32 oz drinks, but the smell of popcorn was overpowering and I couldn’t resist. I mean, how bad could it be anyway? Well, $4 for a 32 oz cup full of popcorn. That’s not much popcorn. It disappeared quickly.

Finally the doors opened and we were admitted to the theater. Our seats were looted in row KK seats 30 & 31. That’s eleven rows from the front, about center stage. I picked them all by myself. It was a great location. We were quickly joined by a ton of other folks from all points of the globe, I’m sure.

Not being shy, I struck up a conversation with the couple to my right, in seats 28 & 29. This turned into a bit of a small world moment for us because turns out Paul is a publisher from Boston. I’ve avoided thinking, or contacting these kind of people for a very long time even though many people tell me I should write something sensible and see what happens. To me that sounds a lot like a job. But, who knows. Maybe in the half a million words I’ve shared in all these posts there really is a story.

The Jersey Boys show was absolutely incredible. One of the best we’ve ever seen. It took us both back to our school days when the Four Seasons were starting up. Great music, non-stop for almost 2 hours. Just amazing and totally recommended. The language is a bit rough, a lot of the time, but it’s like a Bruce Willis movie where you know it’s going to happen, but it seems to be OK. We loved every minute of it and were sad when it all came to an end.

After the show I talked to Paul a while about his publishing business and we ended up trading phone numbers. Since we plan to leave early in the morning, he said he’ll leave some business cards at the reception desk for us. I’m curious to see where this is going.

The monorail trip “home” was uneventful, and we sat here a bit, unwinding. Now it’s time for bed. Next news will be from Susanville, California if all things go as planned.

Basketball Playoffs

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So, now that Stanford lost, taking the Pac-12 our of the playoffs, which lady team are cheering for?

Me? I’m for UCONN. I kinda was when they played Stanford, but couldn’t admit it then.

Now for the men … since both teams were low seeds, I’m happy for both of them. I loved it when Kentucky took out whoever it was they played against, but, for family reasons, I’m compelled to give my allegiance to UCONN. Truth is, I’m just a UCONN fan.

Since Diane and I are here in Las Vegas, I need to know which teams to bet on. Give me some hints so we can go home debt free.

Las Vegas

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Today’s schedule called for us to leave for Las Vegas at 0900 and we made it right on time, at 1000. Around noonish, we decided it might be a good time to eat something so I asked my iPad to find us an IHOP. She did, and we checked in to a really busy one in Perris, California. We had to wait for about 15-20 minutes, and pretty much every seat was full, all the time, so we were confident the food would be hot, and good. We weren’t disappointed. The silverware they delivered was even still warm from the dishwasher. We were definitely a minority in the facility, but that didn’t matter. Everyone was extremely friendly and made us reaffirm our desire to learn Spanish. Or Mexican. One of those.

After lunch we joined a plethora of vehicles and re-established our position on I-215 North. It was all going well then it all fell apart when I saw a huge bill board advising everyone to re-elect Sheriff Stan Sniff. It made my mind whirl with possibilities of other interesting names in public offices. Unfortunately I can’t remember any of them right now, but you have to admit it’s an interesting name for a sheriff. Kinda makes you wonder what his wife’s name is and what they named their kids. How about Scratch Ann? That’s not nice, I know, but how can your head not go that direction? I’m over it, now, and if I ever meet Mr. Sniff, I’ll apologize. Honest, I will. He won’t know why, but I’ll do it anyway.

In Riverside the temperature soared to 80 degrees, then went up a couple more in San Bernardino. Then we started climbing, gently, to over 4000 feet. The speed limit concerned Diane most of the way because there wasn’t a lot of guidance provided by the highway department. We encountered a number of warnings that the speed limit was dropping to 60, then 55, but getting back up to 70 was kind of left up to the individual drivers. Then, 20 miles down the road there might be a sign approving the speed everyone had been driving all that time. More like 75, even though there was a very large police presence on both sides of the freeway.

About 60 miles from our destination, we encountered the only, got that?, the only rest area open on the trip. There were others, of course, but every one of them was closed. Feeling blessed, we stopped, along with an abnormal number of Oriental folks, all of whom seemed to be smoking, because Diane was getting tired and her bladder was apparently full.

Diane was tired because the cross winds for most of the trip were not subtle, sometimes jerking us quite severely. It was reasonable that I take over driving responsibilities, although I’m not normally assigned that task.

Problems started just as soon as I put the Buick in ‘R’. There were 4-5 Oriental people standing behind the car talking, and taking photos of something. I waited, patiently, revving the engine, even whistling out the window at one point, but they wouldn’t move. Finally, Diane got out and made them aware of my desire to run over them, and they dispersed. Apparently, they were feeding birds.

Finally they moved, and I carefully made my way from the parking spot, and on to the freeway entrance. Diane told me she had been cruising at 74 most of the time, so I should set my sights on that speed. I did, and blended right in quite nicely. Shortly after doing that, we noticed the southbound lanes slowing down and it wasn’t long before all 3 lanes were cruising along at bruising 13 mph. We know it was 13 mph because Diane looked at Waze, who knows all that stuff. This continued for almost 20 miles. It was pretty amazing. We had to have passed thousands and thousands of cars. Let’s see, cars are about 18′ long and in this instance were about 3′ apart, so call it 21′. Now, 5280 divided by 21, times 3 for the lanes, and times 20 for the distance covered is 15085.7142857142858 cars. Considering that some of the vehicles were semi trucks, I figure I can round that up to an even 15,085 vehicles we passed during that time. That’s a lot of vehicles.

Finally, we hit the end and I could let it go. There was a point in time where my Oregon upbringing almost caused me to get off the freeway and get in line on the southbound side. Logic intervened, however, and kept me heading North, to LV. Diane isn’t aware of that brief impulse and I’m pretty sure it would have upset her a great deal had I acted on it.

We arrived at our destination, 121 Karen Avenue, Las Vegas. I got us checked in and everything moved to the room, while Diane parked the Buick. When she got to the rooms, we made supper. She baked both the potatoes we had and I made salad. Additionally, I heated up the one remaining chicken breast and ate it with my salad.

After eating, I went back to the Buick to get some things we missed on the first effort, and I stopped by the concierge to order up tickets for The Jersey Boys at the Paris. It’s the first show Diane thought she would like to see, so I got them. It is, incidentally, our anniversary trip.

Now I won’t have to buy a card.

Here in Vegas, by the way, it’s a stunning 57 degrees. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 70.

Go UCONN, Women and Men.

The Last Sunset

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Just a quickie to share our last sunset in Oceanside. We extracted ourselves from the Final Four game (me) and our iPad (Diane) and trotted outside to watch the sun go down. It was about 60 degrees which isn’t really cold, but it really is a bit chilly, so I put on a long-sleeved shirt. I think Diane was wearing ear muffs but couldn’t tell because she had the hood up on her coat.

There are more people here now because, as Diane discovered, this week is Spring Break in California. Still, we noticed that although there are more people, it’s pretty calm. Lots of little kids playing in the sand. Just people having fun. It was a very nice sunset.

See …

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The Beach, Rocks, Dead Chicken, and Seeds

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This morning I woke up with a terrible back ache. Normally, it wouldn’t concern me, but this is the third morning in a row. Now I’m thinking it’s terminal. We have, however, been walking more than normal, so it may be as simple as that. Or, it could be that we’re sleeping in a queen bed that’s about the size of a double and we’re just not used to that. Maybe my back hurts because of the small bed makes me fearful of touching Diane at some point in the night so my body is just seizing up in self-defense. The latter is more probably so maybe it’s not terminal after all. It’s just fear expressing itself in new ways.

After all the knots worked themselves out, we took another nice long, slow walk down the beach picking up agates. That’s not a new activity for us because we pick up rocks everywhere we go. They aren’t, however, always agates.

Following are photos taken to document the day. The first one is a “selfie”, something we’ve done a few times. Diane found a nice flat boulder to sit on, so I joined her and captured the moment.

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This is looking north up the beach from whence we came. Those of you in Oregon will notice a distinct difference between this beach and those at home. It gets better on the north side of the pier, but there are plenty of what I’d call river rock all over the beach. It’s not a place that’s very friendly to bare feet. It’s because of that, and other various reasons, that I wear my sneakers every time we leave the room.

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On the way back down the sidewalk part of The Strand, we discovered many of these balancing acts. Some of them defy gravity and all are fun to view. Pretty tricky stuff.IMG_0787 IMG_0789

This one is a photo of the park next to our current residence. It’s the building farthest to the left in the photo above the lady in the hat … on, snap! That’s Diane!
IMG_0792This is north of the pier. Lots of scrawny palm trees with little tops. That’s my lovely bride looking at the guy walking up the beach.
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Here’s the beach end of the pier complex. The top part ends at South Pacific Street. The other side is headquarters for the Life Guards.DSC_9533

See … told ya.DSC_9534 DSC_9535

After resting from the walk, we took a trip to Camp Pendleton for gas and chicken. Gas for the Buick, and chicken for our afternoon meal. On the way back, Diane mentioned our nutritious breakfast of toast and oatmeal, commenting that it doesn’t seem to stick with her like it used to. I suggested that, perhaps, the oatmeal might be from China because that’s what Chinese food does to pretty much everyone.

We got gas, and chicken, then did a pass through the MCX (Marine Corps Exchange), looking for things we didn’t need. I got a new shirt and a nice little pin for my Lions vest. Then it was back to the room so Diane could cook the chicken. She had stir fry on her mind.

While she cooked, I sat like a lump on the sofa waiting for her to beckon me for assistance, but she never did. I only offered once, knowing that inserting myself into her routine, unwanted, is not healthy. So, I just stayed in lump mode. When she was done, this is what my share of her efforts looked like. It was very tasty. I think I gained 8 pounds before quitting.

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While eating we turned on the NCAA Final Four to watch UCONN Huskies and Florida Gators go to war. For most of the 1st half Florida pretty much stifled UCONN and the score was 16-4 at one point. Then UCONN staged a magnificent comeback to lead 23-20 at halftime. Now, with about 5.5 minutes to go, UCONN is up by 10 and seems to be cruising. But, there’s lots of time remaining and anything can happen. Florida is, after all, the favorite as 1st seed while lowly UCONN is the 7th seed underdog. I would have cheered for UCONN regardless of their seeding, but since they are the underdog it’s especially gratifying that they are doing well.

Now, I just have to ask … what the heck is it with “seeds” with regard to playoff rankings? I took that question to Bing and got a pretty good answer. It appears to have been started in the 1800’s with tennis tournaments where top rated players were scattered, seeded if you will, throughout the contestants to ensure they didn’t meet each other early in the competition. The terminology carried over to single elimination tournament play for the same reason and that’s why you see #1 playing #8 in the brackets.

If none of that makes sense to anyone, I’m sorry, but I don’t care. It’s the best I’ve got.

Go UCONN! They are playing for the NCAA Championship!

Fun In The Sun & Popcorn

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Today was another relaxing one. We got up at our new normal time, 0730-ish, then fiddled around, drinking coffee and reading, until 1000-ish. At that time we decided it was time to eat so I got busy cooking. With permission, I decided it was time for eggs, bacon, fried potatoes and toast. As luck would have it, Diane baked two potatoes yesterday but we only ate one of them so we had one I could hack to pieces and fry them.

Before dismantling the potato, I got the bacon going so I’d have some grease in which to fry the potato. Diane may have preferred that I fry them in butter, or Crisco, but I didn’t want to. I was in charge. I did, however, fry the eggs in butter. That’s Diane’s choice. I, personally, prefer anything that needs to be fried to be fried in bacon grease. I even fry up sausage patties in bacon grease.

Breakfast was awesome, then Diane bundled up for our trip to Del Mar and the car show. Me? I wore shorts and a t-shirt. Admittedly, it was a brave thing to do because the breeze coming through the windows was a bit on the chilly side.

Having previously agreed that we would take a train to Solano Beach, then walk to the Del Mar Fairgrounds, we meticulously checked, and rechecked the schedule to ensure we knew what we were doing. You see, there are about four trains that ply the rails between LA and San Diego with many commuter stops along the way. Interestingly, though they whiz by within a few blocks of our temporary residence, they are not a distraction.

Armed with all this information, we set out for the Oceanside Transit Center, a fairly large complex from which we could exit the area on any of the trains, or busses. Once we arrived, we joined some other neophyte train riders to catch the 1228 train to Solano Beach. An attractive young transit policewoman loudly informed everyone that the next train for our chosen stop wasn’t until 1432, a three-hour wait. I had a brief education by the young lady who pointed out the error in my thinking process that led us to believe we had actually figured out how to read the complicated schedule.

At this point, Diane and I looked at each other, for the first time in days, and voiced our concern about having to wait for three hours for the planned trip to the custom car show. Then we started talking, another rare event, and learned that we were both victims of the dreaded GOTM syndrome. That’s the one where one of us agrees to do something they think the other one really wants to do, like in the story about The Gift Of The Magi. Remember that one? Well, turns out we both thought going to the custom car show because we thought the other person really wanted to attend the show. After talking about this for a while we came to the conclusion that neither of us really wanted to spend time indoors, walking around for hours looking at custom cars. We’ve seen lots of custom cars in the past so we determined that our time would be better spent walking around Oceanside’s back streets to see what we could see, so that’s what we did. We wandered, all the way north, almost to the far end of The Strand.

Then we had to walk all the way back. It was really a nice walk, however, and neither of us was hurting worse than normal at the finish line. Still, we found it necessary to rest for the remainder of the afternoon which turned chillier making our choice to stay inside a good one.

Later, I made some popcorn, for myself because Diane doesn’t eat it, and it brought up the merits of making good choices about which bowls to use. You see, one previous day I selected a bowl from the counter, dried it out, dumped my popcorn in it and plopped myself on the sofa. Diane said, “did you wash the bowl?” I replied, it was wet so I just dried it out. “You know, don’t you,” she asked, “that I soaked my feet in that bowl?” In no way intimidated, I responded, “yes, but you did it twice an I rinsed it between soaks.” She pointed out, “but, Jerrie! I cleaned the polish off my toes with acetone in that bowl!” Sniffing the bowl, I didn’t detect a hint of acetone, so figured all was good.

Although I didn’t look Directly at Diane, I know for a fact that she stared at me with furrowed brow for longer than normal, then went back to what she was doing.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be OK, but one never knows, does one?

Now we’re just in a wait and see mode to discover if I come down with some sort of exotic athlete’s foot kind of thing in the back of my throat. On the off-chance I do, I’m reading about foot fungus medicine on-line to see if it’s a bad thing to ingest. Looks good, so far