Thanksgiving 2023

 Well, I don’t know if it was a quiet week up here in Webster, NY where Life is Worth Living, because we were in New Jersey for Thanksgiving visiting our children who are in the United States.

The trip down wasn’t bad except for some light showers near Scranton and an accident that slowed things down on Route 287 in New Jersey. We stopped in Dunmore, PA at a Subway and had a nice sandwich.

We stayed with Christine and Adrian Tuesday, Wednesday and Thanksgiving (11/23/2023) and then stayed with Teddy and Patti Friday and Saturday night returning home on Sunday. The trip home was good with nice weather and relatively light traffic.

On Wednesday we got to see Katie’s new apartment and she served us a nice dessert with homemade pumpkin bread and assorted goodies. Thanksgiving dinner included Adrian’s Mom, Audrey and his brother Frank. Submarine Man (Stephen) drove up from Maryland to be with us also.

Teddy and Patti invited us along with Christine’s family, Leo, Kristen and Tyler to a nice luncheon and we got to visit with Timmy home from Penn State and Bridget who flew in for the occasion from the University of San Diego. All and all it was.a very enjoyable holiday. Peter called from Islamabad while we were at Teddy’s so we got to catch up on news from him.

And Yet Again I Surprise Myself

 So it is now August of 2022. I guess I won’t make any comment about not posting for a while, but it does surprise me that I go so long between posts. A blog is a good way to keep up with myself and to remember what I have been doing.

Let’s see. What exciting things have been happening? In March of this year we snuck out of isolation to visit Pete  and Roxanne in Barbados. To do that we drove to New Jersey and got to see Ted, Patti, Timmy and Bridget and stayed overnight on both ends of the trip with Christine, Adrian and Stephen and visited Katie too. Barbados was lovely, but the Covid testing requirements were stressful. Hopefully, if we go back again, testing will not be required. I am also researching personal item bags that fit under the airline seat as our only luggage. Checking bags is a pain and the wait at the end of the trip is annoying too. I think I could use my blue bag that I have used as an under seat carryon on many airlines. We have our Rick Steves bags which are fine, but are technically too large for under the seat and require putting in the overheads which is a problem with the tendinitis in my shoulder. We don’t need all that much stuff if we are visiting relatives that have a washer and dryer in a warm climate.

I have been putting together my “Book of Things” which is simply an organized list of all of the stuff anyone would need to know if I were no longer able to explain things. Okay, maybe morbid, but Anne and others will appreciate knowing where things are and how things work.

I am also working on becoming paperless. I am trying to digitize everything and then organize it all. Organizing is the hard part. How do you make reference to and include things. I am using Apple Pages for my Book of Things and am trying to figure out how to either link to other documents or material or to somehow easily point out where they are in the cloud.

I should also point out to myself that I had a colonoscopy in July. There was one small, non cancerous polyp, but, they want me to through that again in five years. The last time I had a three year reprieve, but that time evaporated just as all time seems to be evaporating.

We are already well into August. In less than a month September will be here and I always think of Fall and Winter when September arrives. Around here the first snows can start to show up in October, although we usually don’t get much of any that early.

I bought two Amazon Echo Dots on Prime Days this year. They were $20.00 each with a smart light bulb. I was so impressed with the sound that I dismantled all of the equipment and speakers in the family room and now just have the dots. Alexa is pretty good at playing music from my Apple Music library. I am wondering what the slightly larger and more expensive Echoes sound like. Never mind. These sound just fine.

We are having a giant cottonwood (Eastern Poplar) in the back corner of our property cut down in a couple of weeks. Well, not quite cut to the ground, but enough that the little cotton balls that get all over everything will no longer be present. One of our neighbors gets the brunt of them and is contributing $1,000 to the $4,500 cost.

Holy Cow and Today

We are in self isolation because of the covid19 virus. We don’t know if we have it. I don’t think that we do, but who knows. We both feel fine, so I guess that’s all that matters. In addition to the pandemic we had civil unrest in Rochester because of an act that happened in Minneapolis. Such craziness. In addition to all of the outside foolishness, I have been engaging in my ongoing feud with my computers, PC and Mac. The PC shuts itself down shortly after I turn it on, at least once and then maybe sometime while I am using it to scan slides or just anything. Very annoying. The Mac wouldn’t let me update because I didn’t have enough space on my disk. My flash drive has only 128GB, but I have a 2TB external drive attached. I finally deleted enough stuff to allow the update to take place. I’m really getting tired of being tired of figuring out all of these things necessary to do simple tasks on a computer. Maybe I’ll go back to the olden days where you wrote things on a piece of paper or a notebook. It worked to hundreds of years after all.

Dulcimer lessons have been discontinued because both of our instructors have retired. I may take fiddle lessons in the Fall, but I’m not even sure at this point what form they will take. I do like my instructor, but I can’t say that I am as enthusiastic as I want to be about learning the fiddle. I am no spring chick, so I have a lot to learn in a short time.

I notice, once again, that I do not attend to my blog on a regular basis. 2018 was the last time I wrote anything. That’s too bad, because there are things happening that I should record, but Imjust forget to do it. I really need to get myself some kind of a reminder system. I should also read what I have written in the past. It might be interesting to find out what I have been up to.

DNA Results and Revisions

You think you know who you are, then you get a DNA test that proves that you are someone else, then they revise the results and you’re more like who you thought you were all along. I took an Ancestry DNA test a couple of years ago and it revealed the following:
Scandinavian 32%
Great Britain. 16%
Ireland.           14%
Italy/Greece.   12%
E. Europe.       11%
W. Europe.       11%
Trace amount Jewish

Recently, I went on the site and found that they have revised my results. I am no longer Jewish (Oy vey). I am no longer Italian either, although I am still allowed to eat pizza. The new results are as follows:

Germanic Europe including Germany and Mid-Western United States.  44%
England, Wales & Northwest Europe.                                                      38%
Ireland & Scotland including Ulster.                                                         14%
Norway                                                                                                         2%
Sweden.                                                                                                        2%

So, considering that Northwestern Europe could include Ireland, I am of German and Irish ancestry like I thought I was all along. No one in the family ever mentioned And Scandinavian connection.
We’ll see what the next revision shows. Maybe I’ll be a South Pacific Islander.

The Pacemaker

It was in July, 2016 that I noticed that climbing some hills and going up the stairs in out house was requiring a lot of exertion. I thought that I was getting out of shape and that I should do more exercise, but then I began to think that this was requiring too much exertion. This was over the span of a few days. so, I called my cardiologist's office and got a quick appointment. He did an EKG and said that maybe I needed a pacemaker. He wanted me to get further evaluation. He said, "The easiest thing is to drive over to the emergency department. That way you won't need an appointment and I'll call ahead so they will be expecting you." Got lost on the way (I followed the GPS) but finally got there. They were expecting me and couldn't understand how I wasn't passed out because my heart rate was 30 bpm. Yes, I needed a pacemaker and now I have one, battery and all.

I have to say, hearing that I needed a pacemaker was a shock because a pacemaker wasn't even in my thoughts when I went to the doctor's office. Psychologically adjusting to the fact that I have one has also been difficult. However, thoughts about that have dimmed somewhat since I added a radiation oncologist to my medical team a few weeks ago. That story will have to wait for another post.

The Great Computer Debacle and Other Things

It is hard to believe that I haven't written a post here in over a year. With so many people now on Facebook, I can add little ditties on there. Once in a while, though, I like to write in more detail, just so I have a record of what my life has been like. It is time to catch up.

Rochester, NY is cold in the winter and has lots of snow - usually. This year we have not had, so far, any really debilitating snow storms, although communities not that far away have gotten hit hard. In addition to cold, one thing that Rochester does have in abundance is music. It is home to the world renowned Eastman School of Music, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and many, many other groups and venues for music performances, operas, plays and all manner of entertainment. Anne and I are still taking hammered dulcimer lessons and this year have added a class in the History of Western Music, both taught by the also world famous Mitzie Collins. Many of the performances by the Eastman students are free and we also have a subscription to Rochester Philharmonic performances. So, we are busy musically, but I wanted to talk about the computer and my workshop.

Anne had an older HP computer that wasn't getting along all that well with Windows 10. It was in two different shops a couple of times and we finally got her a laptop to replace it. She is pleased with her new computer. I said, "We really have no use for another computer. I will take this one to my shop in the cellar, remove the hard drive and recycle it." I took it to the cellar and decided that the next day I would get the drive out. Overnight the thought occurred to me that maybe I could install Ubuntu (a Linux operating system) onto it in place of Windows. Ubuntu is frequently used by computer geeks on an older computer to bring it back to life. So, I installed it. Ubuntu is a free open source program and has a ton of also free open source programs to do just about everything under the sun. I put it next to my Mac in my room, but really had no use for a third computer there. (I also have an older laptop.) What to do? I said, "I will take this, now resurrected, computer down to my shop, where I also don't really need it." I have a workbench there with several shelves over it. The bottom shelf was too low for the computer and monitor, so I cut it in half. Then I decided that I could use a couple of electrical outlets wired directly from the service panel instead of extension cords that I was using. It took two days to snake wires around for that project, but now I was ready.

Several trips were made to bring down the computer, monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse. I got it set up and turned it on. Everything went fine and it told me I had some updates to install. Okay, install. Halfway through, the thing froze and despite using all the troubleshooting available, I couldn't get it unfrozen. Logic would have told me, "You took the thing down to recycle it. Why don't you do that?" No. I remembered that I had another hard drive from a backup for this machine that was now not being used. I removed the side of the computer and saw that the hard drive was deep in behind the DVD drive, but it wasn't a whole lot of trouble to get it out. It turned out to be the same size and brand as the back up drive, so I swapped them. I now had to load Ubuntu on this new drive. Upstairs I climbed to get the disk and back down I went. I loaded Ubuntu, which went on without a hitch. I also downloaded a couple of extra programs from the Ubuntu software store (free). I went upstairs and the machine went to sleep after the ten minute time that I had set. It never woke up. Try as I might I could not get the thing to come alive again. Then I thought, "I wonder if I took the first drive and reloaded Ubuntu onto it...maybe it might work. I'll give that a try in the morning." I went to bed and in a dream a voice came to me and said, "Stop already. Disable the hard drives and recycle the dumb thing." Funny how dreams can have a profound effect on your life. I did what the voice said and it is now gone, Ubuntu and all.

Remember that shelf that I was talking about that I sawed in half to make room for the computer? Now I wanted the other half of the shelf back, so I had to join the two halves with a piece of plywood underneath with glue and screws. Now my workshop is back in relatively good shape and I have to decide what to make next. I think I will not make any more musical instruments. This past year I made a minstrel banjo (from scratch), an Irish tenor banjo, a mountain dulcimer and an octave mandolin, all from kits. There's no more room for instruments and I have to learn to play these. I am leaning toward making limberjack figures. That's not a misspelling. They are wooden figures about a foot tall that have limber joints and dance when bounced on a thin board. Dulcimer hammers is another possibility and intarsia woodworking, plus Anne thinks making some bowls would be nice. Stay tuned.

The Model Boat

I have been thinking of making a model ship for some time. Years, in fact. I started a model Lightning number of years ago, took it out every once in a while, looked at it and put it away. Last year, however, I got it out and actually made some progress on it. However, I wanted to build something more ambitious, like the Charles W. Morgan or the Bounty, but kits for those are a few hundred dollars, so, if I bought one, I had better do it. I mentioned all of this to brother-in-law, Art, who thought I should abandon the kit idea and build one from scratch. My father had built a model of a sailing sloop entirely from driftwood and it is really beautiful. But, Dad was a craftsman in the true sense of the word. Then I thought, why not build a model of the Sara B. I wanted a model of a boat that had some meaning for me, so that seemed like the perfect answer. I got the lines of Sara B from Skipper Chris who had meticulously taken them right off the boat. I scaled them out as best I could and blew them up to actual size, 1/2 inch to the foot. Sara B is about 38' on deck so that would make a 19" model.

I met with Art and we went over plans and techniques. I was planning on making a solid hull, but Art thought I should do plank on bulkhead, a lot more work, but more fun (Art says). He gave me a piece of walnut from which I can cut the planking.

Here I am with the piece of wood.

Since I wrote this post, but didn't publish it, I joined the Model Shipwrights of Western New York, a group just forming of several people interested in model boat building. I was contacted around October, but didn't get to a meeting until December 2015. The knowledge and expertise of these men is truly astounding. A few images of works in progress and finished boats are below.





Well, I got correctly scaled drawings from Skipper Chris for the size boat I want. I couldn't get my printer to do anything in the way of scaling without a lot of trial and error, mostly error. So, now I have the drawings and the wood. I had better get busy.