Over-55 and active

Random musings from a guy who's old enough to know better!

Saturday, July 30, 2005

DSL si!

Got DSL running today. Seems quite zippy, and the speed test sites I tried showed the speeds to be comparable to Comcast's.

Of course, the installation hung so I ended up calling Verizon's DSL tech support number, a non-human system that purports to respond to voiced phrases. First I checked to see if indeed the DSL stuff had been activated ("Order status") and got a "You're in luck! Your DSL account was activated yesterday." So I backed out and tried "need help with installation". The response was "You're in luck! Your DSL account was activated yesterday." Hmmm...hung up and tried "installation failed" -- same response!

Tried a different phone. This time I said, "My modem is on fire!". (Cathy came up out of her chair when she heard that!) And Verizon's response? You guessed it! "You're in luck! Your DSL account was activated yesterday."

So I hit the "O" and eventually got a human being who had me log in to the modem/router and set it manually. So all is well.

Also we went to a pool party at our community. Had nothing to do with either the indoor pool, the outdoor pool or either pool table in th eclubhouse! They served KFC with trimmin's, watermelon, fruit salad, cake, Dove bars, puff pastries, etc. When the food was done, we played bridge with another couple.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Correction

A few days ago, I published a picture of a frog in our garden.

I have been advised to print a retraction. That warn't no frog ... that war a TOAD.

However, a "local gardener" trimmed her sedum soon after I posted the picture and we ain't seed 'em (the toad) since!

More on the Red Sox

Matt Clement, the Red Sox' best pitcher, got hit in the head by a batted ball last night and was released from the hospital with just a bump on the head to show for it! No concussion!!! Lucky!

And Trot Nixon pulled a muscle in his side swinging at a pitch. Must have been trying to hit it a mile!

Many Ramirez wants to be traded????? Tell me it isn't so. Why isn't he having a great time, like the other guys on the team? Newspaper pundits say it was just his reaction to their having asked if his wife was pregnant, an intrusion on his personal life. Poor guy. Didn't anyone tell him that for $20,000,000 for a few years, he has no personal life?

Some guy on ESPN had a gargantuan trade all worked out with 6 teams and 8 players and more moves than Michael Jordan, all to get Manny to the Mets, of all places. Wouldn't that be interesting! First Pedro, then Manny. Who's next, Madonna?

Another scorcher!

Weatherunderground says that the temp here at 4:55PM was 97 degrees and the heat index was 110! And it's definitely NOT a "dry heat"! Although the relative humidity is only 50%.

Accuweather says the "RealFeel" temp is (only) 103 and weather.com says it feels like 106. USWeather agrees with weatherunderground and so does the National Weather Service!

Whew!

Spoke with an advisor at my pension company. Boy, was she patient! :-) I'm due for a minimum distribution by the end of the year and it's a bunch of bucks! I had been taking about $11,000/year on top of my Social Security's $19,000 plus part of Cathy's salary from the soup kitchen so we have been OK with money. I guess I'll invest what's left after taxes or something!

Tomorrow I'm definitely calling the dentist. (See below.)

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Time flies....


Wow! Almost a week has passed since I sat here and wrote to you. I'd attribute it to the hot and humid weather we've had, but I live in air-conditioned paradise. :-)

My dentist found a fistula and wants me to have either a root canal redone or the tooth extracted and an implant, uh, implanted. $ound$ like $omething $eriou$ although I have no pain or discomfort.

Went for my first bike ride in ages today. How is it that no matter which way I turn, the wind is always in my face???

My friend Steve is in the Far East. We have been exchanging emails while he was in Shanghai but he says that it will be more difficult to do in Vietnam.

Oh, big news! William (blog link on right) has had his interview with Toi Derricotte accepted for publication in The Writers Chronicle, the magazine of the The Association of Writers & Writing Programs! We're all excite dfor him.

Can't say I like seeing the Red Sox keep losing but as long as the Yankees and Orioles "keep pace", I'll accept it.

One of the people who lives here has a green thumb and the other writes this blog. Here are some pictures, taken today.











New resident in the garden - a very big frog!

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Seeing RED!!

Grr!!! The Red Sox are down 5-1 to the Yankees and it's the bottom of the 9th. Manny Ramirez whacks a long home run and Kevin Millar walks. The Yankees 2nd baseman throws the ball into left field on a made-to-order doubleplay grounder, and Varitek singles to load the bases. A pop fly single makes the score 5-3. Up to the plate steps Alex Cora, hitting about .200 -- exactly his weight, by the way. And on deck is Johnny Damon, hitting over .340. So Manager Francona lets Cora swing away instead of bunting and he hits into a double play, third to catcher to first. Damon grounds out and that's the game. I mean, really!!

Saturday, July 16, 2005

An unusual day!

10:15AM, the phone rings. Cathy answers. "It's Irv. He and Marty are going to be in Bordentown looking at houses and they want to meet us for lunch". Cool! Haven't seen Irv for several weeks and Marty, not since before she went to Chicago. So at 1:30 we meet them in front of Oliver's, a place that Irv and I had lunched the last time we got together, but Marty decided that Jester's looked better to her and since Cathy has been wanting to try Jester's, we go there. Eat lunch, schmooze until around 3. They're thinking of moving away from their North Philly suburban home because the taxes are killing them (they're both retired). alk arounf a bit to see a garden and then stop at a jewelers to get a link taken out of my new watchband. Irv and Marty head back to Glenside.

Go home. Turn on the Red Sox-Yankees game on TV and watch until about 4. Doorbell rings. It's Steve and Phyllis, on their way back to Princeton from Philly airport where S had picked up P after a flight from Orlando. Have a drink. Schooze until 6. "Let's go to dinner." Where? "Italian!" Call Conti's -- booked. Europa is too homely. Hmmm...how about.......JESTER'S? Why not. So back to Bordentown and Jester's for a surprisingly good Italian dinner.

Fun! More improptu socializing than we do in a month.

Two bad things -- I didn't get my nap and the Sox lost. :-)

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

TV: cable vs.satellite

I looked at my Comcast bill this month and at a newspaper ad for Verizon that was offering a bundle of Freedom phone service, DSL and DirecTV. Even without special pricing, the non-cable services are about $60/month less than the cable stuff.

That is, IF I've deciphered the programming options of the satelite TV offerers correctly.

If they turn out to be comparable pricewise, I have to try to determine if DSL is a viable alternative for me. DSLREPORTS says
Your download speed : 2482947 bps, or 2424 kbps.
Your upload speed : 359034 bps, or 350 kbps.

So download is great but upload is "bearable". (I was at a neighbor's today -- she still has DIAL-UP!!! Unbearable!!)

Any readers out there who have gone through this?

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Saturday that seemed like a Sunday

Today, Cathy and I reran the rally we originally ran two weeks ago to see if we could dope out the traps and do it right. We hoped to improve our skills. Well, we only made one mistake this time (one we hadn't made originally!) and learned a couple of things that we have been doing wrong. One had to do with the subtleties of the "onto" route-following instruction, and the other with my not stopping to check every G-D signpost when looking for a turn!!

It was a great day -- temps in the 70s -- except for a very heavy cloudburst of about 10 minutes duration. And it illustrated why we don't rally in the rain.

We then went about 20 miles of our way to the Inn at Mill Race Pond in Hope, NJ, a former Moravian community. (The pond, we were told, was the victim of a flood that burst the dam that would have cost about $18,000 to repair.) Had a delicious dinner -- Cathy had rack of lamb and I had a veal chop - the most tender veal I have ever eaten! -- and drove 110 miles to get home. Guess we won't make the Inn a weekend favorite. :-)

The best part is that Cathy has one more day of vacation!

Thursday, July 07, 2005

1:10 AM EDST

Couldn't find a comfortable position for my legs so I got out of bed about 30 mins ago. Probably a touch of sciatica or the like, resulting from a herniated disk that popped in January, 1997. I've been lucky with it, being able to skip back surgery and have had minimal pain since. I took a handful of ibuprofen and when they kick in, I should be OK.

Cathy & I and Debbie & Nelson have tickets to see the Trenton Thunder play the Portland (ME) Sea Dogs play AA baseball later this morning. I used to go to a lot of Thunder games when they were a Red Sox affiliate but now that they are owned by the Yankees, ... I'll wear my Thunder hat and my "World Champions" shirt, just for the halibut. :-)I think we'll go to Rossi's for burgers afterwards. They are the BEST in the area.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Disturbing Attitudes on the 4th of July

I'm disturbed by the growing number of people who are intolerant of anyone criticizing this country, its government and/or the president.

On a mailing list, I saw a very heated discussion where a black man indicated that he wasn't so gung-ho about Independence Day because the US hasn't done much about independence for blacks (or something like that - his argument seemed very convoluted to me). My response would have been, "OK, you're entitled to fell that way but the rest of us are celebrating." But a number of members attacked him -- ON LIST, no less! -- for exaggerating the plightof blacks and for criticizing the USA. And a couple of them even said, "If you don't like it here, there's nothing stopping you from leaving"!

Wow! That sure isn't what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution -- although there's a passage somewhere in the documents of the time that says something like if you're not a landowner, you only get 3/5 of a vote; anyone know where that is? Maybe it came after emancipation? There's plenty in their writings and those of later statesmen that says that criticism of the government is an essential part of democracy.

This attitude seems to be part of the Bush administration mindset, typified in the idea that if you are critical of the Iraq war, you're "against" our troops! Very sad.

My poor wife has been suffering from a stomach virus since Friday and that's kept us close to home all weekend. She's up and about today, but only time will tell if the cramping and the "urgent" visits to the head are over.