Monthly Archives: May 2026

May 28, 2026 – Thinking Ahead

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Thinking ahead. That title was added spontaneously, not one I’ve given much thought. Normally I consider the course of each post only when my fingers touch the keyboard. I do not ponder about what may transpire. I think everyone is aware of this and are probably as surprised about the title as am I.

So, let’s put this thought aside for a moment and get busy discussing the here and now aspect of my life. I’m sure you are all sitting on the edge of your seats waiting to see what comes next. It’s okay to yawn.

I gave Max his annual bath a few days ago and he’s really happy about that. He kind of forced the issue by digging a giant hole in the side of the pile of dirt sitting in our back yard.

I’ve been told that the pile of dirt will eventually migrate back to the hole from which it came and things will get back to normal. Sadly, having the pile of dirt in the back yard is becoming a new normal for me. When I look out the kitchen window it’s almost as if the pile really isn’t there because my focus is on the creek that is visible on either side.

The dirt isn’t really a problem and it was created with my permission. The big kids had fun with an excavator to make it and the little kids, and Max, have made it known that the pile of dirt must remain until they are done with it.

The purpose of digging all that dirt up was to rid the area from which it was extracted of all the vegetation that covered it. I know, I’ve told you this many times, but I’m invoking my right as an octogenarian to repeat myself any time I want.

During the dirt extraction process they encountered a plastic drain pipe that (we think) is for the water runoff from the roof of the house. All the downspouts around the house go directly into the ground and we always knew it had to go somewhere. Since the yard never floods, it wasn’t a problem so no one pursued the question about where did the rain go. Now we know.

The extraction process resulted in the removal of about 40 feet of the drain pipe which will have to be replaced before the dirt is pushed back in the hole.

This is Max wondering if he’s going outside any time soon.

He can sit like that for a very long time. Eventually he will escalate the situation by adding a very quiet growl. It’s not an aggressive so I let it go. Then he will start patting me on the knee with his left front foot. When he gets to that point I usually put things away and take him for a walk, or I’ll take him out back and hook him to his 50 feet of nylon rope. He had an inferior rope prior to the nylon which he broke twice but getting a long full speed run at it. When he hit the end he barely slowed down as the old rope broke and he kept flying off into the neighbor’s yard.

He came back, dragging about 30 feet of rope behind him. I was surprised he didn’t get wound up in the bushes.

Maybe he figured out how to not get trapped .

May 23, 2026 – Thank You

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I appreciate all the Birthday wishes I received. You are all too kind tor this old man. For those of you who are curious about my age, I’m now officially 82. I made a bold prediction that I’m going to live to 122 so I have 40 more to go.

To assist myself regarding that goal, today I started cutting back on my Atorvastatin. Diane could never figure out why I was taking that because my LDL has always been very low and my HDL was high. Taking the medicine didn’t seem to change anything. Supposedly, taking it lowered my risk of heart attack as a result of my Type 2 Diabetes..

There will be some people who read this that will disagree with my choices but that’s been a true statement my whole life. I’m prone to take chances just for the fun of it.

I’ll not talk about this as we move on. You’ll know whether or not I’m successful or not simply by reading this things. If I’m still kicking that can down the road, I’ll keep writing about stupid stuff. If my posts suddenly stop, I’m either on vacation, or I’ve gone up yonder.

I’ll look for your birthday cheer next year.

Thanks, again.

This is a little off topic, but thought you might like this. The St, Helens police department benefitted from the voters passed a levy that will allow them to replace their police vehicles with state of the art cars from Cuba.

Jeff got a couple of tattoos.

May 19, 2026 – A walk along the Columbia River

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I got up at the eye-numbing hour of 0700 because it was apparently time for me to be awake. I have mornings like that, but not very often, thank goodness. Maybe my early rising was caused by my decision to make this the first day of the rest of my life. That’s true for all of us, but mine was different because the day for me was the one where my eating habits were going to be dealt with harshly.

In the past I reported that I lost about 35 pounds when my pharmacist switched my metformin to Jardiance. It went away quickly, many months (years?) ago and it’s stayed off. Until recently. That’s because over time my eating habits decided to take over my life and get all that weight back as quickly as possible.

So far I’m winning the battle even though eating was one of my favorite things thigs to do. I discovered that no matter what I was eating, and eating often, I could eat an enormous amount of it. The result has been a slight weight increase over the last few months. So, I’m cutting back on food in general. Nothing specific, just cutting back on everything.

Back to the River …

We got there shortly after 0700 and there was no one around. Max was free to wander around off leash. Even so, he made sure he was close to me for the entire trip. The only time he ventured off the path was when he took a trip down to the water for a drink. Most other days he would have gone swimming, too.

If you look really hard, you can see him standing by the water. The ripples in front of him are from him getting a drink.

Once around the walkway then we headed home.

Once here, I had a short talk with Max to let him know I was going to Portland and he couldn’t go with me. I had tong into have one of the Geek Squad people check my iPad keyboard to we if App;e Care would replace it. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t.

I checked in with Best Buy, made an appointment with one of the Geeks, then toddled off to Gina something to eat. I found a noodle place close by and ordered something. I forgot the name of the dish, but it was pretty good.

Please notice the scissors on my plate. This is a new utensil I’ve never received at an oriental restaurant, ever. I have to report that they are really handy cutting the noodles up so you don’t have to bite them off and let the fall into your plate, hoping nothing will splash on your shirt. That was a new thing for me to worry about but I’m happy to report I made it through lunch without getting a drop on myself. Diane would be proud.

Once lunch was done I went back to Best Buy. I had to waste about 2 hour after my first visit, waiting for my 1240 appointment. The appointment was, as I suspected, just a chance for the Geeks to confirm what I thought I knew, that there was no coverage for the keyboard. So I spent the next 15 minutes purchasing a new keyboard case, then drove home.

The ride home was epic because I was able to drive all the way through Scappoose without having to stop at any of the traffic lights. That’s rare.

Once home, I replace the keyboard case then typed all of this. So, you can vouch for me when I say it works just fine. I’m happy. Keep in mind, the keyboard has nothing to do with spelling errors. Those are all mine.

I’ll end this with a photo of one of the bushes that surround the house. It’s some sort of rhododendron that looks pretty pitiful. The flowers are pretty, but sparse.

Now I’m going to stop and take a nap.

May 8, 2026 – Doug and his computer

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This is not a dig on Doug but the efforts expended were directly related to his laptop.

Doug is the Financial Officer for American Legion Post 42. As far as I know, he’s the only one that’s held that position since the post was started 135 years ago. Considering the span of years, I could be wrong. If that turns out to be true, I believe I’ll at least be close to correct.

He keeps all his files on his laptop and generally shares his information with hard copies for the troops to review. Post meetings are held in the Moose Lodge and they have three large TVs mounted in the room they use. Someone asked Doug if he could display his files on those TV’s. He told this person, “Yes I can.” Then he called me.

We spent an hour or so at the lodge seeing how things work there and we came up with a solution. The first choice, for me, was to use Bluetooth for connectivity, but that didn’t seem to be a choice. Another option was to connect directly to the TV via HDMI. During our discovery, we were able to do that, but making it work would require purchasing a very long HDMI cable. Since the TVs looked fairly new I figured there must be a better way.

So, we got busy pushing buttons to see what happens. That’s my solution for any computer problems and generally it’s productive. It this case it was so it’s all good. I haven’t been to an AL meeting in quite a while but I agreed to show up at the next one to support Doug and his first effort in front of the crowd. I will, I’m sure, be a target for many reasons but I’m not worried. Doug has my back.

The lodge was not officially opened this morning when we did our work but a lady was working in the office. When we were leaving she asked for help getting into the office because she inadvertently locked herself out. The only way in was via the service window in the hall. Doug has trouble walking and the lady in distress wasn’t up to the task so I drug a chair over to the window and inserted myself into the office. Doing this required me to bend myself in half, literally, and slide in feet and head first. It worked. During the process the lady questioned my age saying, “You aren’t really 81, are you?” I said, “No. I’ll be 82 in 12 days.” She was amazed. So was Doug. I bet he was sure he’d have to find a way to , I extract me from the window and the ledge that I was sliding on. But, I fooled all three of us. I was adlibbing everything I did about getting through the window. I amazed myself. Tomorrow will tell the tale about which muscles I tweaked the wrong direction. So far, I feel just fine.

My only fear about the entire process was that bending myself in half might could easily have caused me to expel some extra gas that I seem to have, all the time. The down side of that is that sometimes, expelling gas sometimes results in accompanying debris and the need to purchase new underwear. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

That’s my story for today.