It's not the New Year yet, not here, but it is in part of the world. Unlike the year 2000, I'm neither monitoring the news for impending disasters or getting useless updates from my boss about it. That, alone, is making this a less hectic time.

I was surprised, as I often am about things relating to time, to figure out that 2000 arrived seven years ago. I was somewhat less surprised to realize that it's nearly eight years ago. That, to me, should be a much longer time than it feels.

Yes, I have my theory that explains this, about how one year is a fifth of your life when you're only five years old and one-twentieth when you leave your teens, but I've rarely been satisfied with my own explanation. Still, there's no denying that the years go by faster and faster as I age.

I don't remember my resolutions for 2007, but I'm sure they're in the archives here somewhere. Without being hampered by the specifics, I can safely and proudly announce that I think I did pretty well on all of them, assuming I made more than one.

One thing I'm certain I didn't predict is that I'd become rich and famous, so that one's in the bag for sure.

I did lose a friend or two this past year, something I can ill afford, and that hurts, but I can't blame that on anyone except the guy who's typing this now. I added a few acquaintances, however, so there's still hope for the future. I'm in no position to be shuffling off anyone.

There were no immediate deaths to report, which is always good news, but there was a birth. I'm too lazy to post a picture, but he looks a lot like a baby boy, eerily so.

Other people, other cultures, have differing days for the New Year, but I've always followed the random one that necessitates me buying or receiving a calendar right after Christmas. This year the market that's giving me one the past few years has either decided I'm no longer a worthwhile customer or ran out before I showed up, so I may have to make my own.

It's a good thing I'm good with graph paper.

If you read this, I wish you the best. I hope you have an even better life than I do.

I was momentarily frightened, but I had no reason to be.

I was sitting here at my computer, mulling over my fate and regretting that no one would ever get to see my "Decisions, Decisions" entry when I was jolted out of my doldrums by the wail of a nearby siren.

That Decisions entry, by the by, was without doubt the finest entry I've written. It was filled with rollicking humor, pathos, and not a small touch of the insight for which Crenellated Flotsam is so highly regarded. It was, in short, a work of inspired genius whose like may never be seen again.

As fortune would have it, just before I hit the button to publish it, my browser crashed and all was lost. Too bad I compose these things through the browser and not offline in, say, some manner of writing program.

But the siren intrigued me, if just for a second. It was shortly followed by a rumble, the likes of which could only come from a heavy diesel engine. My room was filled with the flashes of light that accompany emergency vehicles, and, sure enough, a large fire truck was rumbling down my street. Right here in the neighborhood, and not two hours after the rain let up!

I thought a fire unlikely, given the circumstances, but you can never tell what holiday celebrations can turn into. My excitement was dulled, however, when the loudspeaker on the fire truck began calling out "Merry Christmas!"

I looked out the window (curious beast that I am) and they slowly drove past. A few houses later, they used their PA to call "Merry Christmas!" again, and I began to notice a pattern.

I can still hear them now, both their intermittent siren and their shouts of well-meaning joy,  and I'm not sure if it's filling with tidings or not. It is, however, raising a chorus of answering dogs, so there's that.

About a month ago a new gas grill popped into my life, the first one I've ever used. It's not hooked up to the gas main or anything, but after years and years of charcoal, lighter fluid, and hickory wood chips, it's remarkably easy to use.

Turn the spigot on the big, fat can of gas, turn a burner, press an igniter button, and next thing you know there are flames, over which you can grill.

The old way of cooking, with the briquets, I still call barbecuing. I've heard there's some difference between the two terms (barbecuing uses lower temperatures), but the biggest difference for me is the ease. This grill is as easy to use as a stove top, but it's outside.

Over the past month I've cooked a couple pounds of ranchera or flap meat, two or three chicken breasts, some sausages, and, tonight, some Thai-spiced rib meat stuff that I've never heard of before. The only thing I've been able to cook well, however, is tomatoes, and I chalk that up to them being edible before they ever touch the grill.

I even looked at the instruction book, and not just to assemble the beast. In it there was some talk of what seemed to me an astronomical number of BTUs, but I have to admit I don't understand that scale one bit. In that sense, they're a lot like decibels. I know what they measure, sort of, but I don't have the same feel for them that I do for temperature.

If you tell me that it will ten degrees, I have a pretty good idea what to expect, whether you're talking Farenheit or Centigrade. I have no such base for either BTUs or decibels, but I'm not so dumb as to not know that more is better.

That means that I have no idea if the thousands, or hundreds, or tens of thousands of BTUs that this thing kicks out are a lot, although they are a marketing point. What I do know is that it doesn't cook as quickly as my old charcoal barbecues, but I guess the selling point is more control than speed with these things.

It doesn't help at all, I don't think, that most of this grilling I'm doing now is done in the dark. Oh, sure, I've got an outside light, but it's directly behind me, so when I cook I cast a shadow on the only thing I'm interested in lighting up. I haven't failed to the point of making chicken jerkey (yet), and I'm sure I'll get better over time.

As thrilling as it may be to be in step with tools and techniques of modern cookery, I miss my old barbecue. It may not miss me much, but I still feel sort of like a traitor.

I'm wearing clean underwear now -- deep blue featuring smiling monkey faces. if you must know -- and it's a good thing, too, but I'm not sure how long that will last. I'm headed to the doctor to have my eye looked at.

The web designer with whom I've been working writing content is close to settling a contract with an eye doctor who performs that Lasic thing, and I joked that if it was an eye surgeon, I could, maybe, get a discount.

As it turns out, I was told to call this guy, who may or may not be the one for whom I may end up writing. I'm not sure if I'm really getting any discount, but today's consultation is free.

There are two things that have prevented me from having my eye repaired. Two years ago I noticed that my right eye, the dominant one, was unable to ever give me a clear picture of our beautiful world. It was like looking through wax paper. I went to some nearby optometrist type guy or other and he used some instrument to look into my eye and told me that it was a cataract. You can't see it from the outside, but I can't see, either, so we're even on that.

He said it would cost between a thousand and fifteen-hundred dollars to fix, and I left it at that. Not to get political, but I don't have that kind of money to spend, not yet, so when something goes wrong, I pretty much have to live with it. I'm not old, but getting older, and things are beginning to go wrong. Since I don't have insurance, I'm pretty much stuck with dealing with maladies in the way humankind did for its first couple thousand years: waiting and hoping I recover and that it fixes itself.

Even if I had the money, I can't imagine being awake while someone slices my eye open and takes out the offending cataract. Sorry, no. Worse, they'd have to sew it back together, so I've been resigned to losing my depth perception and having only one good eye. It's a small price to pay for all the wonderful things I've seen, including undressed women.

The surgery, I figured, would be even more expensive with a general anesthetic.

I know some cataracts can be removed using lasers or sonic treatment, but that's even more expensive, I thought. That "in by noon, out by four" treatment would be great, but not if it meant someone slicing my eye open and me having to lie still.

Anyway, today I'm going in for my free consult. It may be that he can use non-surgical means and I can get my vision back. It may still cost more than I can afford, or it may be that he's planning on using a scalpel, so I don't know.

What I *do* know is that whenever I mention something, people want and expect me to take care of it.

Follow up:

Yes, I *do* have a cataract, the "Dense (traumatic) Cataract" as shown on the doctor's web page (which I, incidentally, had nothing to do with).

Yes, it can be safely and easily removed through surgery, in as little as ten minutes.

Yes, it requires me to have my eye sliced open and needles stuck it for that length of time.

Yes, people are stepping up and willing or actually helping me get this done. Everyone is eager and prodding, and I feel ashamed of my misgivings and squeamishness. Dr. Soroudi, who's strikingly handsome and reassuring, thinks I'd do just fine. I have all the trust in the world in him but very little on my own ability to remain rock still while the surgery takes place.

He wants me to get Medi-Cal, a welfare type thing, I guess, and we'll see what happens. I honestly just don't know.

I've been told that we, as human beings (as opposed to we, as jerks) are differentiated from the rest of the animal kingdom because we have the ability to empathize. When we look at scenes from the war, we can imagine the heartbreak and sorrow the devastation has caused; when we see starving, malnourished people, our instinct is to send them some ethically grown, organic carrots; when we see ostensibly poor and struggling college girls, we wish to send them some clothing, no matter how much they smile and act is if they're enjoying themselves.

I have no idea how we've determined that other animals don't share this trait, but then again, I have no idea how the other animals think. One thing I'm convinced of is that the dogs I've owned sure don't feel the same things I do. Or, at least, they don't seem to feel them in the same way, to the same extent.

I base this on nothing scientific, mind you. Only on observation.

I had a dog once, Boutros, who confounded me by laying on the floor and resting his head on some wood that served as part of the frame for a coffee table. Yes, it acted like a pillow, or perhaps a synthetic Russell leg or arm, and kept his head off the ground, but there were actual pillows nearby that he ignored. My current dog, Minardi, will invariably lay his head on the bed's footboard instead of on the bed itself or any wadded up bedding, and I tell ya, that can't be comfortable.

I know these dogs can feel pain,  but seeing their behavior when trying to rest or, in Minardi's case, after his recent run-in with that cat, whatever pain he feels isn't very similar to my own. He may flinch a bit at the moment when I apply some dressing to a wound, but it's no where near the overall reaction I'd have. He shrugs off his little sores and wounds about a minute after getting them, and I have to wonder if nature has somehow given animals a less dramatic sense of pain and injury than we humans have.

Is it worth thinking about? Maybe.

The decision by PETA to boycott Mars fills me with indecision and reminds me of my own answer to this whole animal question. It may not be a good solution, but it keeps me well-fed and still, I hope, a kind and considerate person.

I refuse to be simplistic and rally against animal cruelty. That's hardly a contentious position since there's not much in the way of an army of pro-animal cruelty. Taking that position is about as controversial as being for breathing. I own animals, I find them cute as can be, and I can't even look at roadkill without getting sad and wincing.

Still, perhaps to keep my sanity or to allow me to enjoy animal products, I seem to have developed a system. This wasn't intentional, but it seems to evolved into one that works for me.

As a general rule, I have different standards for wild or natural animals, and raised ones, though I obviously don't think either should be tortured or abused.

Wild animals, pretty much, should be left alone to enjoy their lives until they die of starvation or are killed by a larger, or more hungry, animal. I don't think we should hunt them or kill them for fur or ivory. It's okay, I guess, if we put them zoos to look at them, but I say that because everyone I've ever known who worked at a zoo is a nice enough guy.

For some reason, though, I think it's fine for us to "create" or raise animals and then kill them for food or supplies. These particular animals, I'm thinking, wouldn't have existed without our intervention, so we pretty much get to use them. If someone causes twenty foxes to exist, raises them with care and then kills them to craft a fine looking and warm coat, I'm okay with that. This isn't reducing the fox population and isn't depriving any foxes of their natural lives in the woods. These foxes wouldn't have existed without human intervention, so our removing and using them isn't really having any effect on nature.

There are a lot of people who eat meat and many more who eat plants. Simply put, both are grown by some people for others to eat. It was a tragedy and wrong for Buffalo Bill to slaughter herds from the train, but if someone is growing buffalos to slaughter, that doesn't bother me too much. There are an awful lot of people who like bacon and hamburgers, enough that producing those things is a business, and like all businesses, it becomes a matter of efficiency.

To feed the world probably takes a lot more cattle and pigs than I can count. I'm guessing well over a thousand. Just as doctors see patients more as symptoms or diseases than as people because of the huge numbers they see, or the way ambulance drivers become numb to gruesome or sad sights, I think those who deal with cows and pigs just see them as product after awhile. They become no more than an in-box of work, and while this is sad, it's normal.

I am willing to believe that people who work at slaughterhouses aren't sadists. I'm also willing to believe that mistakes do happen just because of the numbers involved, and that sometimes a killing doesn't go as easily, painlessly, and quickly as everyone wants. The large numbers involved pretty much guarantee that.

I know the US has a history of trappers gathering beavers and selling them back to Europe to make into fine looking hats for gentlemen, and I don't think we should be doing that any more. If someone wants to do that, they need to raise the beavers themselves and not take them from the wild.

I spend about a third of my life sleeping, which pretty much makes me an expert on that subject, but I really shine when it comes to falling asleep, which I do well over a thousand times a year. You could say I get plenty of practice at it, mostly because I can't sleep more than three hours without waking up.

It's not the most interesting of topics, I know, but that's never stopped me from writing about things before.

Now, calendar freaks may object, but it's officially winter here. I know this because the heater goes on, even when I don't set it. The thermostat goes down to fifty, and when it kicks in I know two things: it's cold outside and that means it's cold inside, as well.

I'm comfortable in the cold, but even I have my limits and one of my favorite things to do is go to bed. I love it when my bedroom is cold, but when I'm toasty warm under the bedding. I get a sense of accomplishment heating up that cold bed.

Then, I decide to go to sleep. At this point, one of two things results:

(1)    I'm more comfortable laying on my side, often with my knees drawn up. I'm more comfortable laying on my left side, but I've been told that's bad for the heart, so after laying on my left, I switch to laying on my left side in the same position, get comfortable, and close my eyes.

I like that part. It's so cute. It's charming. We close our eyes and then fall asleep.

(2) All the above happens, but instead of drifting off to sleep, I start thinking. This is never a good thing.

It's not that I worry, I just ... think. I mostly "write" things, blog entries or stories ideas, but most often perfectly craft sentences. Or, I think about women and how nice they are, or about people I know and if they think of me as often as I do them, and to what end. Or, really, I think about anything.

When something pops into my head that I don't want to think about, usually something I need to do and haven't, the best way for me to get it out of my head is to change position and flop over onto my other side. This often works, but between stretching my legs out and curling them back up, trying it with a single leg, and remembering that I shouldn't go to sleep on my left, I don't have very many positions to take that will cleanse the horrible thought from my mind. After two or three such rude awakenings, I'm sort of out of options.

I do have a couch I can sleep on, and there's a loveseat I can cram myself intwo, but neither of them are very good for sleeping unless there's a football game on. What I'd like, of course, is a guest bedroom, but the space for that is filled with computers and junk.

The good news is, if I don't think, I sleep. If I don't think, though, I'm not me.

Because I don't have enough problems in life, I tend to make some up. Ever since I was a kid I've wondered about heaven. I do this in spite of having a firm and solid understanding of life after death as being living on a cloud in a world of pretty much white and gold.

When I got a bit older, although how much older it's hard to say, I began having troubles with my notion of this trouble-free afterlife. Leaving everything else aside, I began worrying about the logistics of heaven, and my limited, human understanding has created dilemmas only God can untangle.

A big question I have is with people's age and state in heaven. I'm not expecting any corporal bodies, mind you, but I can't imagine a heaven that would work for everyone involved.

Will my parents, when I meet them in heaven, be as old as they were when they died? That might work for me, but I don't think it's the way they'd want to be for all eternity. Maybe they'd rather spend eternity being thirty or so, like I would.

There ideal life, which I'm guessing is what heaven would have, may be when all their kids are children, when we were all together. That would make me about six, say, and I'm not sure my idea of heaven would meet up with that.

I may want to be in my thirties and married, a great time in my life, but what if my ex has an idea of heaven that doesn't include me at all? What if one of my past girlfriend's notion of heaven includes me as a lifelong partner? Do I have to stay with her, even if I don't particularly care for her?

There is, it seems to me, too many possible conflicting ideal lives. I'm willing to grant God the ability to sort them all out, maybe using some utilitarian principle, but I can't imagine any heaven that isn't as full of compromises as it is harps.

Although I don't believe in the biblical prophecies of apocalypse or the return of Jesus to judge the quick and the dead, that doesn't prevent me from putting an assortment of things into the category of signs the world is ending.

Today I had one such thing.

I've been hassling with a cold the past few days, nothing major, just phlegmy and headachey. So, as I often do when I feel like this, I thought some homemade chicken soup would be in order.

At the supermarket, they had everything I needed, sort of. I looked over the bags of chickens and found one small enough to fit nicely in one of my pots, but that would still infuse the water with life-preserving, chickeny goodness, which I understand to be a function of chicken oil and fat. I was tempted by a free-range, organic chicken, but since I can't really taste anything, the extra money would be a waste. I'm not sure if the organics have anything to do with it, but subjecting a free-ranging chicken to slaughter adds that extra bit of malevolent sweetness to its firm, supple flesh.

The chicken I bought, one that had no doubt been raised in a cage and never even glimpsed the sky, probably wanted to die and obviously never had any life it enjoyed.

The leek assortment was small. Not only were the leeks small, but there weren't many to choose from, and I think I snatched up the only one worth having. Carrots were a snap, I had no problem grabbing a shallot and a bunch of green onions, but I was stopped in my tracks when it came to celery.

This store, Vons, is known nationwide as Safeway, and is not some little local grocery store. They have everything, including mystery shoppers, and I always like to check the board by the manager's station to see how well the store did on its last shop. But, this particular Vons, on this particular day, did not have celery.

Or, rather, to be precise, they didn't have any "regular" celery. I looked all over the rather substantial produce section several times, and there wasn't even a bin or place for celery.

But they did have organic celery.

At about three times the cost of the celery I wanted.

I looked again, but it was a senseless gesture because I'd done a very good job the first couple times. Nope. Only organic celery.

If food produced in quantities to feed the nation and the world is no longer being produced, I don't see a good future for us, only a rather bleak and frightening one.

Maybe all the celery got burned up in the fires we had. I heard that about avocadoes, but I wasn't looking for avocadoes. Tomorrow I'll make my soup, with this organic and much better celery, but I doubt I'll even notice it.

This Halloween has pretty much come and gone now, mostly because I had to shut off the light after running out of candy. I always make a point of trying to count how many trick-or-treaters show up, but usually lose count somewhere between twenty and fifty.

This year started off slowly. By eight o'clock, scarcely ten kids had shown up, and I think there were that many bags of candy that hadn't been opened yet. Then, it got better, and swarms of ten started hitting the door, one after the other.

I don't think many of these groups, who were mostly families, are local, but I don't see the difference. Most of them were dressed (the little girls mostly being rincesses or angels, the boys spidermen), but there were a few swarms of cowboys.

Later on, of course, there were teenage goths in fishnet stockings, and a couple of them, after getting candy, asked for bags. Their old ones, it seems, were full. One got the plastic bag the new phone book was delivered in, and I gave a paper Trader Joe's bag to the other so she'd know I was cool and all that.

One little girl came with her sister, or maybe her mother, who was wearing a heavy letterman's jacket over a push-up leather bra. Nice. Very Halloweeny. When the last kid, who was dressed as a pirate (sort of), wished me Happy Christmas, I decided the holiday was officially over and turned off the porch light. Then, I released Minardi from his confinement in my room.

Then I settled down with the last half-dozen or so Snickers bars and guessed at 150 - 200 kids.

Not my favorite, but one kid had a T-shirt with Arnold Schwarzenegger on it. I'm not sure if it was a Terminator shirt or a Governator, but it made me laugh.

For someone who owns six or seven dictionaries, you'd think I'd know more, but you'd be wrong. There are a lot of words I don't understand, really common ones, too, and I'm not proud of that at all.

The word evil is one of those, and I run across that one all the time.

If I try to figure out what it means by considering how it's used, I can only conclude that evil means "to stop debate." Whenever something is called evil, the point is to stop thinking about whoever's called that and to just go along with the person saying that. No further thought or consideration is necessary. The case is closed, and there's nothing to agree about except how right the person using the word must be.

I have a couple problems with evil, not the least of which is that the word carries some amount of religious baggage. The other thing is that I can't imagine a truly evil person. I can imagine evil actions, or, maybe even evil incidents, but not someone who is evil personified, and that's how I'm supposed to think, according to the person making the claim.

Hitler, of course, is often used as an example of evil, and there's no denying that he was responsible for some pretty horrific policies and actions. But even so, I'm not comfortable with calling him evil. He had evil plans, he did evil things, but is that all that's meant when people equate him with evil? I don't know.

I can easily imagine someone robbing and killing somebody and being called evil, but if that's done because of hunger or love for someone else or to save his children, well, I can despise the act but still consider the killer not to be evil. Yep, he's doing something wrong, no doubt about it, and probably had other ways of defending someone's honor or putting food on the table, so I agree with calling him out on his actions. But I'm just not comfortable calling the guy evil.

That word, to me, means something very special. I'm just not sure what that special thing is.

I've been thinking a bit about mortality lately, and there's a few things I won't miss when my time comes. I'm not expecting any afterlife, so if I get stuck in one I imagine that's the first thing I'll regret.

The anniversary of the Tylenol scare just passed, and there were a few news accounts making mention of it. Man, that dude changed the world, and not in any way I like. Thanks to him, and I'm not even sure anyone died from that poisoning thing, damn near every product I buy now has more safety seals than the space shuttle. Hard plastic wraps around the cap that need to be cut with a knife to remove, then some sort of vacuum safety seal on the inside that, as often as not, doesn't peel off properly.

Even things *I* know would be a dumb choice for some random, terrorizing, mass poisoning stunt, like dishwashing soap or shampoo (which may actually be the same thing) sometimes are sealed for my safety. I mean, really, if something's in my shampoo that  burns or dyes my hair, well, I'm probably using it in a place where I can quickly wash it out.

Anyway, all this product safety stuff bugs me. Not that I've got anything against safety, mind you, but theses gimmicks have far less to do with safety than they do with ass-covering for litigation purposes.
Because of one sick whacko, the whole world changed.

Another thing I'll be really happy to get away from is the unavailability of rare hamburgers. They were excellent. I'm sure cooking the hell and taste out of meat is a good thing, but I'm not one of its fans. I know, I know: listen to the vegetarians. They'll set me straight.

I also won't particularly mind getting away with partisans pretending that every thing that happens is some life-shattering evidence of duplicity or worse by the opposition, either. I know, I know: Everything has to be dramatic, and if Bill O or Keith don't act all worked up, there won't be any viewers. Still, I'll be glad to be rid of it.

The world's changing, and most of that change is good. Not all of it, though, are changes I like.

I'm sure I've mentioned before this great thing I heard or read somewhere about memory and how someone said something about how some things are remembered because of utilitarian reasons, some for no reason at all, and others, maybe, because we make a conscious effort to remember them.

I'm not sure, exactly, because the quote and whoever said it must have fallen into the second of the three because I sure didn't make any effort about remembering it for future citation. Still, it's true, and things in the second class are the best, anyway.

I can't help it. I'm intrigued by how inconsequential shit sticks in my mind for years and years.

I'm not sure if I remember it because I heard it so often growing up, or if it was just one of those things my mom said once, but quite often at three in the morning I remember my mom scolding me about "wishing my life away." I don't remember the exact wish of mine that incited that remark, but it may have been the typical "I wish I was grown up" thinking I believe lots of kids do. The only time I can honestly remember wishing time would pass quickly was once on July 4th when I was bored setting fire to snakes and staining the sidewalk and wanted to see some real fireworks.

I think of it often at three in the morning, though, when I wish it was five so I could get out of bed at a more reasonable time. Not that five is a such a good time to wake up, but it beats three, hands down. Three is just plain weird.

All of which has nothing whatsoever to do with any of the Fs referred to in the title. I was going to dazzle everyone with my knowledge of anatomy and talk about frenums (knowing full well that the plural of frenum is actually frena) and, then, show my insight by talking about how knowledge is frequently confused with simple memorization of terms.

I still think that, mostly because whenever any expert is consulted, they far often are only conversant with the specific and accurate names for things, which we all take for conclusive evidence of their wisdom. In fact, I think use of jargon or technical terms is pretentious, and mostly used to disguise or obscure insecurities, but I think that about lots of things.

In any case, the point is, using and insisting on technical terms, to me, is the exact opposite of knowledge. It's an old saw, but it's true, that being able to teach is the best indicator of knowledge. If you can't make a lay person understand what you're talking about, you don't know it very well. Hammering people with technical terms only makes you look like an ass, and not a very knowledgeable one at that.

Then, California wildfire season sprung on us, and everyone in the LA area who watched TV was treated to newscasters rambling on and reminding us all of two things:

1. Most newscasters, when not given copy to read, are indistinguishable from any other great looking person


2. Extra points are given any newscaster who mentions Foscheck

It can't be easy to fill several hours of broadcast time when there's, honestly, very little to say. Many of these news anchors, and I suspect they do it just to piss me off, spend an inordinate amount of time treating the reporters in the field as if they were absolute idiots by warning them repeatedly to "stay safe" and checking that they're wearing their goggles and masks.

Now I'll grant you that the reporters in the field have no more to say about wildfires than they do hurricane winds and rain, but I guess it's their lot in life to stand about outside when any sane person would be inside and offer inane comments about the most glaringly obvious of observations. Maybe they're all hoping to get a job with Fox News, I dunno.

In any case, I got my two Fs in, and even talked a bit about memory.

I'm not sure how far this can be extended, but I may try to push this three thing into another area of everyday life: eating.

And, by eating, I mean mine. As in, dinner. And by pushing, I mean "let's see what happens when I divide the food I eat into the same three categories."

I'm not sure I've ever actually said it, but according to early TV sitcoms a very common question is "What's for dinner?" Borrowing from before, we can divide dinner into three categories (again, in handy bulleted format):

• What I will eat for dinner


• What I should eat for dinner


• What I want to eat for dinner

I'm not what you'd call a good grocery shopper even though I do it a lot. I shop not only when I should be doing something else, but often when I don't need to do it at all. I think part of that is because I know how to successfully maneuver my way around stores filled with food. It's far less intimidating for me to buy something I know about, so perhaps it's just as a way of getting a feeling of accomplishment that I'll head to the grocery store and pick up some pineapple tamales or a bag of frozen corn.

I know, down deep inside, that I can do that task pretty much without failure.

The problem stems from the fact that I never can buy just the one thing I need. I invariably wander the aisles, picking up things that I can envision myself preparing or eating, and then forgetting all about most of them once I get them home and safely into a cupboard or the refrigerator.

Which brings me to one of the main determinates in answering ""What's for dinner?"

As often as I can remember, I base my dinner on what I expect to be on the verge of spoiling. I don't like to waste food on principle and can't really afford to do so, so as often as not what I have for dinner is what I don't think can wait another day. One of the problems with this scheme is that what's about to turn inedible is often something stupid, like a tomato. While I've got entrees waiting to be enjoyed, I end up whipping up something just to use a tomato or two.

In any case, "what I should eat" ends up being populated not so much with what would be a good thing to eat as what I can't put off eating any longer. I know most people would consider the answer to "what should I eat" to be some intellectual exercise involving amino acids, the nearness of the farm, and maybe even political ideologies, but I guess I'm not that evolved.

What I want to eat is, at the moment, pie. What I had for dinner was leftover Dinah's chicken (the Little Miss Sunshine meal of choice) that my sister bought, thinking she could stomach it, and some frozen vegetables. I'm sure I failed the amino acid test, didn't score many points on the "eat local" front, and failed, miserably, to pass anyone's political litmus test.

But I'm full. And I don't have to throw out any chicken.

Life was easier, more a matter of black and white, back when I divided the world in two. That whole duality thing has quite a bit to recommend it, but it doesn't help me much at all.

But maybe it would, if I used it.

Instead of that, though, I'm currently all about splitting my activities into three. An effect of this, of course, is that it makes me more miserable, but that may explain its attraction. In any case, here goes: how I divide my actions into three and with what results and the nature of each.

When it comes to actions, those things most normal people do instead of just thinking about things, the most obvious and first is the smallest of the three: What I'm doing at any particular moment.

At any one time, rest assured, I am performing precisely one thing.  There may be other things moving to some sort of completion in the background, but those were probably set in motion by me earlier and are either waiting for me to get back to them or humming along nicely without my interference or helpful assistance.

So, there's the thing I'm doing now, and that actually is what causes most of my problems because the remaining two categories are things I *should* be doing and things I *want* to do.

So here's the entire list, in handy bullet format:

• What I'm doing


• What I should be doing


• What I want to be doing

The number of things I should be doing is, frankly, pretty large, and it depresses me to even think about them. Worse, since I can attempt them and suffer the pain of failure, things in this category don't get acted on as often as you might think. Yep, the chance of success is probably even greater than the likelihood of failure and would not only lead to an accomplishment and getting something off the list, but would make me feel better. You would think that would be enough motivation for me, but you'd be wrong.

Anyway, whenever I'm doing something, I can't stop thinking about what I should be doing instead of what I'm currently involved with. If I'm doing something I want to do, I can't take as much joy in that as I should, because I'm always thinking about what else I could be doing.

I have no idea what any of this means, but in the meantime there's something I should be doing instead of writing this entry...

I'm not sure how common this knowledge of mine is and I'm not forgetting how dangerous a little knowledge can be, but this news is too good not to share with everyone who reads this!

I've lately been working on writing content for an estate planning website. Since I've had to read and re-write over a hundred pages of really exciting stuff having to do with probate, wills, living trusts, and the IRS tax code, it's been tough to sleep. Along the way, however, I've managed to pick up a thing or two that's really worth sharing.

Every person, every year, can give me $11,000, and I'd just like to repeat that.

Every person, every year, can give me a gift of $11,000 and not be subject to the gift tax.

Why so few (read: anyone) are taking advantage of this great tax opportunity is beyond me. Not only will this gift remain within the guidelines for gifts established by the Internal Revenue Service, but more importantly, it will reduce the amount of your estate after you die.

We've all heard horror tales about this "death tax," and no less a person than the friggin' President of the United States has spoken out against it. He should know.

Instead of letting your estate be eaten up by evil bureaucrats after you die (and we know that interferes with resting in peace), you can do yourself and me a favor by giving me an $11,000 gift each and every year!  Think how good you'll feel! Not only will be giving it to the man, but you'll be giving it to me, too!

To facilitate this process, I've updated my website. A simple click on the item at the bottom of the page will reduce your tax profile, and you can expect a letter of thanks from me, personally!

I've been away for most of the month, minding other people's pets and sleeping in comfortable beds, and I returned home here to a few welcoming gestures.

My dog, of course, attacked me as if I was wearing a suit of ham bones, and my computer welcomed me back with a dying video card. I've been restricted to laptops while I was away, and while I certainly am grateful for having them, they've never been my computing medium of choice. I like big screens that I can read without my glasses and that have enough real estate to display all the things I've usually got going on at once, but the biggest advantage of desktop computers is how easy they are to upgrade or repair.

Maybe that's just because I'm used to them. Whatever, given a choice I always jump to my desktop computer and leave the laptop for offline writing.

So, after a moment's cursing and gnashing of teeth, I bit the bullet and bought a new video card. As a reminder of my state, I shied away from upgrading to the best and brightest and just got one slightly better than the one that died. I never used to do that, but I never used to worry about money all that much, either.

Because I'm so well-practiced at it, swapping out the video card took far less time than crawling under the desk and disconnecting all the cables connecting the box to everything under the sun. Then it just took another few minutes to see how all the various operating systems would respond to the new hardware.

That part is always good for excitement. It didn't hurt that my heart was pumping blood that held as much sugar as corpuscles, either, thanks to a generous house sitting gift.

I guess I should feel honored or something that my computer waited until I came back to get sick. Maybe it missed me as much as I did him.

This morning I had a pretty good plan, another one of those that never quite pan out.

Yesterday, when I was driving around near the place I'm housesitting, the brake pedal made it all the way to the floor. It got some traction, and between that and the hand brake I was able to drive safely home. No biggee. I think I mentioned before that Timmy has this little brake problem, usually solved with replacing his brake fluid.

By the way, brake fluid is like really weird stuff. Feels weird and stays on your hands funny.
Anyway, so, this morning I was planning on heading back home and dropping off some shit, but Timmy refused to cooperate. Even with the addition of brake fluid, one of his precious bodily fluids, when I got in the car and pumped the brakes, nothing happened.

Well, that's not quite accurate. Pumping the brakes, it's true, did nothing to get them to perform any better (the pedal still descended to the floorboard, without much resistance), but what I failed to see is what was happening.

Which was my depositing about a pint of brake fluid (that earlier mentioned really weird stuff) onto the driveway of the place I'm housesitting.

What to do?

It's one thing, and this, of course, was my first reaction, to hang my head in disgust and pull my hair. That soon passed, and I was left pacing. When I remembered the sage advice ("What would a normal person do in this situation?"), I knew I had to act.

I have AAA membership, which lets me get one free tow a year. I think. What I don't have with me is my AAA membership card, but I did have a copy of my temporary membership. The next thing I needed was a place to tow the car, and here the Internet came in handy.

Battambang Auto Service is quite close by and someone on Yahoo! gave them five out of five stars. That was the only person who had anything to say about them, and I had my suspicions it was Mr. Battambang himself saying that, but it was one more rating than any of the other auto places had.

I called, and they said they could work on the car, but they always say that.

I then called AAA and arranged a tow, and, to my surprise, my AAA membership had not expired. Sure, it will in less than a month, but I was a still a member in good standing, and a handsome and capable AAA tow truck subcontractor soon lumbered up the street and hooked little Timmy up.

Then, off to Battambang Auto Service, which was in one of those auto repair strip malls I sometimes see. There were about a half-dozen tiny shops offering tires, transmission, oil changes, all the usual car stuff, and Battambang Auto Service was in the very rear. It was but a moment's effort to push Timmy back there, and he was soon ready to be hoisted into the air.

Instead of being told to wait outside, I was told to sit in him, and soon I was six feet in the air while the mechanic putzed about somewhere below me. It was pretty soothing up there, but I did, once, have to depress the brake pedal.

Some five minutes later I was lowered, and some three hours later I was home, the proud possessor of a replaced brake line.

One good thing about this auto mall was that I saw a parade of POS cars like mine coming in to visit the various shops. A not unattractive Asian girl, with a lapful of anatomy flashcards, waited to have the window repaired on her 1992 Camry, and we chatted a bit, and I wandered around to look at tires and see how professionals spent their day.

Some girl came in and got an oil change in about five minutes for twenty bucks, and her Honda took about six quarts of the stuff. I was later offered an oil change for the same price, which would have netted Mr. Battambang about twice the profit for my car.

Anyway, he offered me a great deal of needed service, later, when I could afford it, for a special price "just for me." If I can't do things myself, I may take him up on it.

Not a bad experience at all.

China's been in the news lately, and I don't think it's entirely been there just as a way of keeping Iraq out of the news. China's been poisoning our pets and our kids, and that is something up with which we will not put, or even take kindly to.

In all of the hoopla it was revealed not only that there's such a thing as counterfeit toothpaste, a fact I've yet to get my head around, but that China (and now India) is putting anti-freeze in tubes of toothpaste.

People in the US, as can be expected, went ballistic. All of them except me.

I think I learned that antifreeze could kill dogs when I was a teenager, so it's lethality wasn't any news to me. I've never quite understand how, though, but I think it has something to do with the liver or kidneys or something. Evidently a great deal of antifreeze gets into one of those organs and shuts it down.

Now, I'm no scientist. I know hardly anything about my skin and even less about the stuff that goes on inside of it. All of those internal workings aren't my business, but that doesn't keep me from wondering about them from time to time.

The way I see it, if my body is "presented" with something like antifreeze, its first response is along the lines of "what the fuck?" A hundred thousand of evolution hasn't taught my body how to handle antifreeze, so I imagine each part of the digestive system shrugs its metaphorical shoulders and passes it on to the next part. "Nothing for me here," I think they say.

The trouble, as I see it, comes from the fact that unlike a marble or corn, this antifreeze doesn't get pushed out. It makes its way into the blood, like any good chemical should, and piles up somewhere where it does damage. Maybe it overwhelms the kidneys, giving them too much to work with, but that's not really the point.

I have no idea how much antifreeze it takes to kill someone, so if you were hoping to find that out, you'll need to look elsewhere. Whatever amount it is, though, I'm confident that you couldn't put that much in any toothpaste tube I've ever seen, not even if left out all the toothpaste. The amount of antifreeze these nefarious Chinese could put in a toothpaste tube can't, I don't think, be much more than a drop or two, and I don't think that's enough to kill anyone.

Ideally, my body would go through the "what the fuck is this?" reaction and get rid of the stuff, like it does all kinds of other foreign matter. The worst case, and the only one that could conceivably concern me, is that my body might think this antifreeze would be useful for something, but doesn't know what yet. Like me, it might stash it somewhere, hoping for an eventual use.

My body, in that case, would be wrong, of course, but I can see it happening. From what I've learned about other Chinese plots, lead is stored in the body and can reach harmful levels if enough comes in, and maybe antifreeze is the same. Even so, though, I can't imagine the pint or so of antifreeze can ever be accumulated through what they've been putting in toothpaste. I don't know about you, but that would be hundreds and hundreds of tubes of toothpaste, all of which would have to be tainted. There's no way that I would spend my life brushing with the same brand of toothpaste, so I'd never reach critical mass.

Thus, I consider this toothpaste scare to be overblown. I'd prefer not taking in any antifreeze, but I'm not about to worry about the minuscule amount some shifty-eyed Chinese chemist introduces into my toothpaste.

It's pretty simple, really. What I have against lawyers is that they don't want me in their world.

Years ago I was watching the OJ Simpson trial and in the beginning, during the questioning of one of the police lab workers or something, a very innocuous question was asked by a member of the defense team. I don't remember it exactly, but think I do, and it went something like this:

"Did you do your best possible job (when you handled the evidence)?"

That's when I realized that, if they don't want me dead, most people want me off their planet. It's a very good question, and one I'd hate to answer under oath. I can't recall ever, in doing anything, not doing the "best" possible. As far as I'm concerned, there's always room for improvement.

Not one thing is ever done perfectly, not when I add in hindsight, so I'd have to honestly answer "no" to that and similar questions. And that answer, I've learned, implies that I'm a total slackard and ambivalent. Lawyers, and others, would eat it up.

Since I can always imagine doing things better, not one thing has been done to the best of my ability. Not one. Nada. Zilch. Zero. I can always a do a better job, from everything from tying my shoelaces to writing an entry for my blog. Not one has been done the "best," which to me means perfectly.

Not everyone, of course, would say they want me dead since I can't be perfect, but I think they'd all agree that I should change. I'm not sure what their answer would be if I told them I refuse to change, so that's why I came up with that "get off my planet" thing.

In the end, it's all the same. Every accident is preventable, at least in hindsight, so if I'm ever hauled into court for causing one, I'm dead meat. Lawyers must live in a perfect world, one I'm not qualified to join.

I may have broken my toe this morning (I whacked it against something, and it still aches, several hours later, but you have to consider that I can't experience any torso pain without thinking it's a heart attack), but that's not what I'm going to write about. Instead, it's about fireworks.

Last night was the third night in the last five that we were treated to fireworks, but it was by far the best of the lot. Some people may have been too impatient to wait, or maybe they needed to test out their matches or punks, and began setting off some on Saturday, but they all saved the best for last. The Wednesday night show was an impressive pissing contest, with many of my neighbors competing.

The best part, by far, was that all we could see were the illegal ones. When I was growing up we had "safe and sane" fireworks that, by today's standards, would land your ass in jail quicker than having a joint. Those were very mild compared to what would be set off at the local park, but even those are too much now. We used to have pinwheels and little Roman Candles that spat forth colored balls of fire, but if it's even legal to have anything this year I'm sure it's nothing that anyone would really enjoy. Last time I checked, the best you could have were sparklers.

Even at Chinese New Year's, the people who invented fireworks, for God's sake, you aren't permitted anything more than those pop rock things.

Still, many of my neighbors risked life and limb and probably traveled to Indian Reservations, Mexico, or bordering states to secure a hefty amount of what can only be described as packaged awesomeness. I have a hunch some of these may have been equal to the fireworks from the park of my youth, but since I could only see the really high-flying ones, maybe back yards were filled with less impressive celebrations of our nation's birth.

While the neighbors were busy outdoing each other (about five or six in the neighborhood), more of us were in the street applauding the better displays. Then, it all came to a halt as the imposing presence of a fire truck crawled down the street. They stopped a few doors down, and I could see a conversation going on between some guy safely inside his truck and a very guilty neighbor, one with a decidedly  extravagant display. After a bit of talk, the truck moved on, and one by one, the sky fell dark.

It grew so calm, Minardi poked his nose out from his hiding place under my bed.

In the grand tradition of scofflaws,  however, some fifteen minutes later the skies erupted. Everyone who was warned or caught set off everything they had left, and it was easily the best display of fireworks I've seen, ever. It was all around. The missiles screeched and exploded, the individual displays melted together, and it was like being in the middle of a snow globe of fiery, loud goodness.

Dude, it rocked!

Then, as quickly as it erupted, all was quiet and still. Everyone must have shot their wads and before the fire or police could show back up, my neighborhood was as peaceful as a Ghandi convention. If there even is such a thing.

When we were all first buying houses one of my friends properly decided "puttering around the yard" applied to any outdoor activity related to landscaping that you could accomplish while holding onto a beer. Mowing the lawn or raking, then, wasn't puttering, but watering was as was wandering around, plucking the occasional weed or kicking at things with the toe of your boot.
It was a good distinction then and it remains one I use today.

A few months back I bought a conspicuous consumer item, one of those lawn hog mulcher / blower things. I never had any use for a blower (I use a rake), but I was tickled by the thought of vacuuming my yard clean of all the leaves deposited by my neighbors with trees. The contraption is a noisy beast and fairly ungainly, but it works passably well.

It is, of course, designed more for providing the finishing touches on lawns that resemble golf courses, where it would be excellent if you had a long enough extension cord, which you couldn't, but its biggest advantage is it turns whatever it manages to suck up into tiny pieces. It used to be that a good raking would overflow my one furnished green yard bin, but now I can fit about three times as much into it. Although you might conclude that I, therefore, do three times as much yard work, you would be wrong.

Even though the thing pretty much requires two hands (one to hold it and one to aim it at the ground), it's still puttering in my book. You could, if demanded, operate it with just the one hand since the bag on the business end of the thing has a handy strap that fits over your shoulder. It's quite fun to turn the thing on and immediately experience the flat and empty bag explode four times its size as it fills with air in an instant.

The drawback is that it has its limits, as do we all. Twigs and large pieces that it refuses to accommodate hang around the opening and act like a filter. You have to occasionally shut the damn thing off and remove them or else nothing it can handle will be sucked into the vortex of mulching. It's not bad, but I've learned that over time unless you rake this stuff up it quickly becomes the majority of what you're trying to handle. Right now on the side of the house there's a mass of one part leaves to about six or seven of twigs.

One of the other benefits to the gadget is that whenever I use it all the neighbors know I'm cleaning things up. They may not think so, otherwise. I find Saturday or Sunday mornings the best time to fire up the beast since I imagine it interrupts their pleasant breakfast conversation about what a slackard I am. I'm sure it doesn't stop their complaining, but it lessens it in one regard.

The other thing is that it easily sucks up as much dust and dirt as it does yard matter. The advantage to that is I resemble nothing so much as a coal miner after using it for a bit, which makes me look as if I've been working.

When, all along, it's just puttering.

It's nearly July and that can mean but one thing: hunting season. I just printed up my hunting license to kill (the small version) and was preparing to begin my annual onslaught against the ants when a singular event occurred. I was in the kitchen scouting out ideal locations for the sweet, sweet nectar of death that ants crave when a rodent bumped into my ankle.

It surprised me more than her (or him), not the least because I don't, in fact, resemble the old lady from the nursery rhyme. Also, and more importantly, it led me to exchange my ant hunting license for the varmint variety.

Although I didn't leap onto a chair, I didn't get a good look at the critter, either. It may have been a mouse, it may have been a small rat, but I wasn't convinced there's any functional difference, anyway. It was an unwelcome guest in my kitchen.

Ideally I'd devise a means of catapulting the critter out of my property. I've had luck in the past with putting a handful of dry dog food in the bottom of a plastic bucket near the steps that lead to the back yard, but not often. What's ideal about that method is the mouse smells the food, steps off the step to get it, and ends up trapped in the bottom of the bucket. Then, it's a short ride in a shoe box in the early morning to the refuse bins behind some fast food place I never go to.

But that takes two things: luck and time. While rodent hunting season, I've decided, doesn't officially begin until the first of the month, housecleaning may begin this weekend.

I went to the store and bought some traps. Two of the old, wooden and baitable variety and two plastic ones ("Power Kill Rat Trap") that trip when stepped on. I think that should be enough, but I'm never convinced they're ruthless enough. A cat or terrier, I think, would be much better at hunting down my enemies.

It would be better, of course, to use poison, but there's a couple problems with that tactic. One, if successful, there ends up being a smelly corpse stuck in the wall or under the house half the time and while that stench doesn't last long it's hardly conducive to enhancing my appetite. The other is that I have the unwarranted fear that one of the dogs will find and eat the poisoned remains and follow the little rodent over that rainbow bridge.

Yeah, I know, it's completely unrealistic. My dog has never eaten roadkill or even expressed much interest in it, but it's not a logical impossibility. These traps will have to be set in places the dogs can't get to or step on, but I'm optimistic that they'll be more successful than I would be if I got a pellet gun and played Rambo.

So, the traps are set and while you're reading this, I'm huting.

Today I had the solemn duty of burying a pet. A very small one, I admit, but the one who'd been with me the longest.
About twelve years ago I attempted to fix my childhood and fill in a gap by getting a lizard. Not too far from here there was a reptile store that had moved in right next to where I'd worked in a Mexican restaurant in high school. A dance studio also moved in, but I wasn't as interested in that.

The reptile store was a very cool place to hang out. It was, as could be expected, filled with glass cages holding all kinds of cold blooded, dinosaur-looking beasts and a good number of snakes. I'm not sure why I selected the one I did, a cuban anole, but it may have been a combination of things. One, it may have been less expensive than some of the more exotic offerings, or it may have been its bright green color and size.

I ended up building an enclosure for him and spent a great deal of time at the lizard store, as I called it, buying crickets and pinkies. The owner of the store, a young guy, was very cool and one of the snakes on display was his personal pet. Annie wasn't for sale, but she was (one of?) the anacondas they used in the movie of the same name.

Yeah, she was HUGE.

My anole, Andy or Little Green Guy, was the least active reptile on the planet. I think he was lucky to have been captured, since I doubt he could have lived more than a week in the wild. He wouldn't hunt, wouldn't even seek out, anything to eat or drink but was literally content to wait for things to drop into his mouth. Oh, he might move his head to grab something tasty next to him, but that was about it.

His only other trick was to bite me every time I grabbed him. He'd sometimes fall from one of the branches in his habitat to the bottom and, being too lazy to climb back up, would lay there until the big pink hand would come in to rescue him. Then, he'd bite it.

With my success with raising him, I next bought a basilisk for $100. Yes, I had a notion that some day I might see if he could really run on water, but he escaped  before I could try him out on a pond or pool. What happened, actually, is I was picking him up and he got loose and ran out of the house at an ungodly speed.  I gave up looking for him after about a minute, and bought a replacement who managed to live a few years without ever being introduced to a body of water.

Then, it was just little green guy. Since he never moved, he was indistinguishable from green art, which is how I usually referred to him. In his later years he could no longer handle pinkies, then couldn't even deal with crickets, and ended up on a diet of worms and hamburger or other bits of meat.

Twelve is, I think, a lot of years for an anole to live. I also have to say that my home is quite a bit emptier than you'd think a lost lizard could be responsible for.

The money I saved on my car by filling the radiator with coolant instead of buying and installing a new water pump, thermostat, sensors, or engine block has been spent on a new DSL Gateway. So, it seems Ramen and I may be friends for a while longer.

At first, starting earlier this week, I'd lose connection and my joyful little green LEDs were replaced with red ones, or ones not lit up at all. Then, after struggling for a bit, they'd return and I could browse to my heart's content and check my e-mail for important penis growth formulas, opportunities to assist Nigerians, and purchase Rolex watches and great stocks.

Then, I couldn't do any of those as often as I wanted, and, today, not at all.

I was able to get connectivity restored by wiggling wires and unplugging and re-pluging the various cables, but as it turns out that was a false positive. Today, instead of flashing green LEDs or the hated red ones, I had none at all. The whole thing was dark, even the power indicator, and I realized that it had surrendered to old age. This didn't really surprise me since the phone company that had given it to me is also long gone, having been gobbled up in merges a couple times since I signed up.

The component I'd been using, an Efficient Networks Speed Stream 5260, had been furnished "free" by my telco when I moved to their DSL service from ISDN. I'd gotten a few of the ISDN parts over the years I had that service seemingly because every time I lodged a trouble ticket with that service it triggered a "send out some parts" flag. My DSL service, however, only got me one set of parts.

When I saw my unit was dead I naturally panicked. I don't even know the official name of the part, only that it serves as the DSL version of a modem. It can't be a modem since the telephone line it connects to is digital, and I had no idea if my telco ever had to do anything to get my old one to work.

Not that I ever let the telco come anywhere near any of my phone lines or inside equipment. I can do that very well myself, thank you, and save myself the embarrassment and the shrugs of techs who aren't allowed to recognize linux. So, although I remember needing to know lots of arcane things having to do with spids and whatnot for the ISDN line, I have no idea how the DSL line ever worked.

So, with nothing better to go on than a hunch and optimism, I went to Fry's to see what they had in the way of parts. Once there I saw many cable modems (another misnomer), and very few DSL equivalents, but the important thing is they had them at all. I had two brands to choose between, neither of which I'd ever heard of before. One, ActionTec, came in two flavors, being either two or three "products in one." The two-in-one features an ADSL modem and router, and the three-in-one has those and also built-in wireless access point for twenty bucks more.

Although none of my computers have wireless components, I splurged and got the 54 Mbps Wireless DSL Gateway. One never knows, and I may someday choose to join the twenty-first century.

I followed the needless instructions, and it works! I say "needless," but if you haven't spent your life around things like this I guess it would be helpful to know how and what to plug things in. Not surprisingly, you have to plug the power in, connect the gateway to the DSL line, and connect any computers you wish to have access the Internet to the gateway.
The only step that gave me pause was when I was asked for my username and password. My username, sometimes, depending on the application, wants both my name and the name of my original ISP (Pacbell). The password, fortunately, is the same one I use for my e-mail with them, so I was glad I didn't have to do any memory searching.

It's working now, but that's just because I just got it up and haven't done anything with it yet. My old router, a discrete component, is now in the pile of no longer used components and the old DSL modem is in the trash. The new ActionTec, according to the box, has a built in firewall and can function as a NAT box, and I may need to find out how to access and screw up those features.

Then I can be without Internet again.

Every man, it's said, has a plan that will not work. This is useful because it keeps people like me from getting a swelled head.

Today's humbling entry comes to us from the area of automotive transportation.

My little car, Timmy, has been overheating. When I first got him, about nine months ago, his running temp was about one-third up the gauge located in my instrument panel. This, I felt, was an ideal temp.

Then, a month or so ago, two things happened which may or may not be related. On one trip he jumped his idling speed momentarily to double its normal rate, all the way up to 2000 RPM. It soon went down, but I noticed after that incident that his temp would stick around the two-thirds mark. It would, sometimes, drastically descend, which made me feel better, but it was higher than I'd grown used to.

Then, a week or so ago, it started climbing into the red zone and brought me a lot of panic. I quickly figured out that the electric fan that pulls cool air through the radiator wasn't turning and figured that to be the culprit.

I checked that, with an eye toward troubleshooting the problem and re-attaching some loose wire, and soon discovered the wiring under my hood was unlike what the wiring diagram had led me to expect. Evidently someone previous owner had experienced the same thing and had jury rigged the system to work.

I took a few days to think things over and get some electrical wire fixing things, a new soldering iron, various connectors, and testing cables, and with a expectant heart dove back under the hood. I found an old connector sealed with electrical tape and opened it up.

Actually, it's only half a connector. The other half is missing and the wires had been jammed into the remaining half and held in place with the tape. I was hopeful that I could figure out how it should all properly go together, but was simultaneously afraid that I might give it my best shot and fail. It hadn't worked the first time I tried putting the pieces back together (even though I felt it should), but I blamed that on one loose wire that I couldn't figure out where to put.

So, I spent a few days analyzing things out and feeling crappy from the safety of my front room, but today I realized I needed to get things working. In short, the fan is once again turning at breakneck speed and it looks as if my efforts were successful. I drove out and was dismayed to see that the temp is still high, near the red zone.

I don't know if it will stay at that temp or climb even higher, and I'm unwilling to risk it on a longer trip. I know the fan works, and that's what I thought the problem was, and there's good reason to think the thermostat is okay since the upper hose is hotter than hades.

So here I was, all excited about congratulating myself on solving yet another problem, when all I did was eliminate one of the problems. I'm thinking now, of course, that maybe the whole electronic control chip is bad, but I'm not even sure if my car has one.

I guess I could try flushing out the radiator.

A couple weeks ago I got a call from my dental student Shervin that surprised me. We don't have much of an arranged schedule, but this call was totally out of the blue and he wanted to know if I could come in the next day for a hygiene lesson.

I wasn't doing anything, surprisingly enough, so I agreed even though I wasn't feeling particularly well. I went and, when he came into the lobby, we exchanged a nice hug.

When I got up to the chair I learned that it was to be our last meeting, ever. He graduated last week and is on his way to USC to further study. The good thing about that, as I told him, is that blood doesn't show up on the maroon (cardinal, they call it).

Shervin's always been on my side and has handed me some work, too. This visit may have been part of that, or maybe he honestly thought I didn't know how to brush. I have a hunch he needed to do one final hygiene instruction or something, and picked me out because it would give us a chance good-bye and he could load me down with free dental goodies.

Which he did.

He gave me the instructions under the watchful gaze of a professional hygenist or something, and a large handful of exclusive dental supplies. I now have my very own proxy brush, which is the coolest thing I ever seen. It has a handle like a toothbrush, but instead of bristles it takes a replaceable thing like a miniature pipe cleaner. It works between teeth, like floss does, only it has a handle. I also got some samples of some stuff to use between brushings, powders that I'd seen advertised but wasn't sure if they were hype or not. I also was given an "end-tuff" brush, which is more like a toothbrush but only has a small circle of tough brushes instead of the larger rectangle of them. It's great for brushing one tooth at a time!

Best of all, in my mind, was a metal tool, which looked professional. It's brass or bronze and has a conical rubber tip on the end.

I was very grateful to get all these things, but was sad that my UCLA Dental experience would no longer contain my favorite dental student. The other students I've seen are all competent, but none of them talk to me or seem to think as highly of me as I think everyone should. To them I'm just a mouth, a bad one, a case.

Shervin was my friend, and I wish him all the best.

That whale up north, I guess, has made it back to the Pacific Ocean before the Japanese whalers got it to it, so that's all good. Still, there's been a lot more whales in the news the last few years than I ever remember hearing about before. Just the other month I think there was one in the Hudson river, too.

So I've been thinking about whales, just a little.

The Japanese, I hear, are introducing some new measure or other about hunting them, or some regulation or other, and I think I've finally discovered the problem. Some well-meaning, but misguided idiot, years ago decided that the offspring of a whale should be called a calf.

Big mistake.

If you don't want people eating something, I maintain that it's not a good idea to name it after one of the more delicious and widely eaten things on the planet. Leaving aside the Indians, the real ones, five-sixths of the world know there's few things more tasty than beef. If I wanted to protect whale babies, I think I'd name them poisonos or something. Something to discourage the thought of how good they'd taste barbecued. You call them calves, well, you're just asking for trouble.

The other thing these wayward whales have taught me is that we humans are very generous when it comes to calling things intelligent. Okay, I'll give you the ability to swim beats out, say, turning your face toward the sun, but I think that if one of the things that differentiate animals from plants is mobility, the ability to handle that movement should have some importance. Nowadays, whales are getting lost all the time, and that's just sad.

There are some who say it's our fault, that our navies are deafening them with sonar or something, and I think that would be pretty easy to test. It might be the mercury we're filling the ocean with, from all those early thermometers one would think, and, again, we could find that out pretty quick.

It may be that whales are to humans as men are to women. Everyone laughs at how stupid men are for not stopping to ask directions, and the whales are that stupid and more. Glorious animals, yes, but with too much pride to ask for help and too few muscles in their sense of direction, I'm thinking calling them intelligent may be stretching it.

I've been lucky enough to see them and was in awe of their majesty. I feel the same way about mountains.

This weekend marks the unofficial beginning of Summer, 2007, which coincides with the end of Spring, 2007. Because of that, I'm going to pose my weather question.

I think I've already said that I have questions about the "inches of mercury" used to measure barometric pressure, ones that my personal assistant could answer for me if I'm ever lucky enough to have one. Another thing my assistant could figure out is why we measure rainfall in inches.

Not that we've had very much at all this year where I live. The word dry comes to mind, unless we're talking about my yard, in which case the better word would be brown. Still, the little rain we've gotten, as well as the seasonal norm, is always given as a matter of inches.

It goes without saying that when we receive rain every container in the yard fills up with about three times the amount the officials say we got. I suppose I could get around that and get a result more in line with the proper number if I had a tube about a foot tall with a one inch opening, but I don't. As it is, the buckets and coffee cans out there all give me a wildly inflated figure and get me excited about just how much rain we've gotten.

But that doesn't have much to do, at all, with my question.

Water, and by extension, rain, is a liquid last time I looked. I guess counting up the inches that have fallen is a measure of volume, but doesn't water already have a built-in measure of that? Don't we, for every thing other than rain or snow, measure volume in cups or quarts or shots? If we want to be scientific or European, we could use liters or ccs, and I think any of them would be a better way to measure rainfall than the way we do now. Inches, to me, measure length.

Liters of rain per square meter, or cups per square yard, would be a sensible way to measure rainfall, and I guess that's why we don't do it. One of the first things my personal assistant would be charged with is starting the march to get everyone on board with adopting the Russell Standard for Precipitation Measurement.

Unless, of course, someone else has come up with this idea already.

I'm reminded today of one of the better pieces of advice I've received.

If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all.

It's entirely possible that my dog, Minardi, just got in the first fight of his life. Against a cat.

!@(loserdog.jpg:L120 popimg: "2ndPlace")

He seems pretty happy about it, though.

I wasn't around, of course, but he was out in the backyard, no doubt minding his own business or patrolling his territory. The cat encroached and scratched him up pretty badly. His eye is all red (not that you can see any detail in pics from my phone), and he has some mean scratches on his snout.

!@(loser1.jpg:L120 popimg: "lost2cat")

I was worried at first. I washed his face, but was relieved to see that he was more eager to go back out there than he was to be treated. He may have gotten his ass whomped, but I guess it didn't hurt as much as I feared. He may have lost, but it seems unlikely he learned any important life lessons.

And in that regard he may be more like me than I like.

According to some experts I heard about once, we elect people based -- as much as anything -- on appearance. This doesn't explain Henry Waxman, but every theory has exceptions.

If this holds true, I expect the GOP will go with Mitt Romney, about whom I'm less than ignorant. I saw him at the "debate," however, and he's as pandering as the his fellows, so I guess he has a good shot. To be a successful Republican primary candidate you need to be unrealistically obsessed with immigration, talking tough, and the sanctity of life (criminals and terrorists notwithstanding).

You also have to talk a lot about evil, a very religious-sounding term that puts you in the right.

The better looking Democratic candidates, I think, are Obama and Edwards. I'd add Kucinich to the mix based on his hot wife, but everyone focuses more on how short he is. Hillary doesn't look bad but she peaked a few years ago for me, so she's out.

I'm guessing one of those three will be our next president.

Now that the GOP "debate" has been aired, I've most likely seen our next President in action, giving a one minute press conference.

Last week it was the Democratic hopefuls, and from somewhere in that mess of twenty people, the next US President will emerge. I can't say as I'm particularly thrilled with any of them and none of their names sound right yet with the President prefix.

What happens next, of course, is the primaries. Right now part of my dissatisfaction may have to do with every candidate running as hard to the extremes as possible. In the primary elections, you have to cater to the extreme elements in your party, and it's only when you have the party faithful do you move more toward the center and reason. So, while last week it was all about who hated Bush the most, this week it was all about who hated abortion.

They tell me that the successful candidate will need to raise about $100 million dollars by the end of the year, just to win the Primary. To do that, of course, is a full time job, so I'm thinking most of these Senators, Representatives, and Governors won't be doing hardly anything at all as far as their day job is considered. I guess most partisans are so fond of that "favorite son" thing that they won't mind that their elected officials are going to be too busy raising money to look after their interests.

I think this is a horrible way to select our next President.

The GOP candidates are all white men, as are most of the Democrats. I guess they're all still really good at raking in the money.

Although our planet's the biggest thing on earth, it still needs a holiday. The good news is the day we set aside to honor and remember all the great thing this blue-green sphere does for us is right next to 4-20 Day, another hippy holiday.

Odd how that worked out.

Home Depot, today, was giving away compact fluorescent bulbs (one to a customer), but I couldn't justify driving there to get one. Maybe if I had a Hummer, or some car with air conditioning, it would have made sense, especially if I also needed to buy some of that Roundup stuff.

As it is, what I'm doing for Earth Day is watching Discovery Channel's Planet Earth. I can't wait to see how it ends.

I live a couple miles away from LAX, so it's no surprise that I'm an expert on all things aeronautical. In fact, for many years growing up, I'd answer the "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question with "An aeronautical engineer." By the time I could have understood what that entailed, of course, I'd given it up, but it sounded good at the time and cut off further discussions.

I, also, live about half a mile from the nearest railroad track, so I can be considered an expert on rail as well. The track isn't used any more, I don't think, but when we were kids my sister and I found a rusted can near the tracks in a light industrial area and were convinced it was the markings of a hobo camp. We'd venture there only with the family dog for protection.

I'm much closer, of course, to paved roadways, cementing my expertise on that as well. And it goes without saying that what I'm closest to, chairs and beds, are things I also know quite a bit about.

Every day guarantees a few things. One, I'll hear and see planes approach the airport, and, two, I'll read about global climate change and environmentalism on the Internet. What I don't see written about very often is that humans all want to live in the biggest house possible in the nicest spot on earth.

Where we differ, thankfully, is on what constitutes the nicest spot on earth.

The Unabomber and a handful of others lived quite simply (the word austere comes to mind), but not very many others want to do that. I think that's a shame. This planet could support six billion people living in tiny dwellings about the size of our current bedrooms much better than it can answer all our desires to live in huge places that require lots of maintenance and eat up even more resources.

We all want nice things (or, nicer things, driven in part by advertisements), and I'm no exception. Just today, for example, I was eating some seedless green grapes, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. The grapes were larger than usual, about half the size of my thumb, and came from Chile. It's a testament to our smaller world that I can eat fruits grown thousands of miles away, and it also relieves me of the guilt I still associate with Cesar Chavez and the whole grapes boycott, but that relief didn't last long. I have no idea how many resources were spent in transporting those grapes to me, but I have a hunch it's a number I wouldn't like.

Should I be selfish and insist on having what I want, the way I want it, when huge freighters or airplanes are needed to bring it to me? Or, should I think of the planet and forego unseasonal foods, or ones grown the way I prefer, to get ones that can arrive in my mouth at a fraction of the expense?

I never got that degree in aeronautical engineering, so I have no idea how efficient air travel is. I do know more people are flying around than ever before, and the convenience of air travel makes business meetings a reality as never before. More people are flying on more pleasure trips than before, too, and I think that's because it's so easy. It's not as much fun any more, but it beats staying home or driving.

I heard, once, that rail travel is more efficient, but since it takes longer, no one chooses train rides any more. I consider that a shame. No, train travel isn't the adventure it was even twenty years ago, but it's easier on the planet (and, I'd say, on the passengers: nothing compares to the reassuring feeling of being trapped in a train car for what you know will be three days. No where to go, nothing to worry about, no say in anything until Tuesday afternoon).

Yet, because we treasure our own, personal needs so highly, we fly on unnecessary trips, demand huge homes, and eat grapes produced on farms we can't locate on maps. I have no idea what, exactly, the future will bring, but I predict more of the same.

I was a little nervous late last night, but we managed to dodge the bullet and life, as I know it, didn't come crashing to an end. The meteor, as predicted, missed Earth and I can eat that fish in my freezer, only just not for breakfast.

In a way, I'm a bit disappointed. It would have been, literally, spectacular. Sure, along with the rest of us, I would have died, but I've long known that I'm going to do that, anyway. And, as long as I'm going to die, it's better to do so in some tremendous way than old and sick in hospital with tubes and candy-stripers.

Which, also, explains why I'd be first in line to be abducted by aliens, should they get here. The way I see it, there's not much difference between dying here and dying on some other planet, and seeing how they live or travel would be its own reward.

I know, I should be more selfish and grasp onto every chance to live another day, to extend my life and use up even more of this planet's limited resources, but I've already taken far more than I've produced. I don't have the numbers handy, but I have a hunch it's more than my fair share, so I'm justified in feeling as guilty as I do.

And, no, I'm not actively seeking out ways to die, but seeing the end of the world would be ... noteworthy. I don't believe in it, but the Rapture would be far more interesting to see than just some doctor shaking her head while looking at my chart. More dramatic, if you will.

There's another meteor or asteroid or something on its way, and there's always the bird flu or Supervolcano under Yellowstone to consider, so I haven't given up hope on the Revenge of the Cosmos.

Until then, I'm happy to be alive and hope to live each day more fully than the last.

On the outside chance that our astronomers are wrong and mixed up miles and kilometers again or lost a decimal place and 2006VV2 comes crashing onto my planet later tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who's ever had a kind thought about me. And, to say thanks for all the fish. I just filled my freezer with a big pouch, too, and it would be sad to think of all those cods giving so much and me not enjoying them.
If life, as I knew it, were to end, I think I'd miss it (if I could).

I usually like surprises, which I consider odd since I'm fairly bristling with control issues, but only pleasant ones. Having my planet smacked into by a mile wide hunk of space iron definitely classifies as a "surprise," so in this case I can agree with those who consider surprises "nasty." I'm usually amazed when someone surprises me with a gift, though. I think that's because I really can't believe people think of me kindly when I'm not in their face, reminding them of my presence.

I frequently, when out shopping, see things I think people I know would enjoy (today it was TieDye Paas egg dying kits), and sometimes buy them to give as gifts. I think that's a neat thing to do, but frequently the recipient of my largesse takes to them unkindly.

Just as the earth would to this asteroid.

Right now I'm hacking up my lungs while enjoying a cigarette and stinking up the joint, so let's get that out of the way, pronto.

The patches seem to be the way to go, at least for me. While I know better than to say they worked and I quit smoking, I think I could of. My excuse this time for picking cigarettes back up is that my sister's sick.

It's not bad enough that she's ill, something I wouldn't wish on anyone, but she's home. And in my face. And very miserable. It's far easier for me to stop smoking when she's not around, like when I'm out housesitting, but my most excellent plan to quit with the change of the seasons was one I hadn't run by her and her schedule.

There will come a time when she's healthy enough to resume her duties, a time when I quit without the distractions of nagging, but Spring 2007 is not the time.

In about half an hour, around seven minutes past five, local time the sun will slip through some imaginary line and it will be Spring. It will also be when I quit smoking.

I've made a whole lot of half-hearted attempts since my last real one a few years ago. I decided to quit twice in the past week, but when I heard that Spring was coming that seemed to me to be a good thing to hang it on.

The greatest obstacle, of course, is that I don't really want to stop. I want to smoke and have it be affordable and not take all my wind away, but those things don't happen in the world in which I live. It would be easier, too, if I didn't keep seeing all those damn anti-smoking commercials on TV.
This time I have patches, and I've been experimenting with them a couple times. I don't know if it will help, but I hope it might. I got cheap ones, not the Nicoderm brand, and they're neither transparent nor small, about the size of an orange.

This also means, of course, that I'll be eating so much candy that my dental student(s) will cringe if they find out about it. But, since they also want me to quit, maybe they'll understand.

One would think that if I was able to quit drinking that I could also give up cigarettes. I don't know what I'll be like in the future,  but I expect to be fatter and less cool-looking. I know it's a good thing to do, and maybe it will help take my mind off whatever it is that's been dragging me down.

This, I think, is the first time I've publicly told anyone, and that may help my efforts. In the past, some close friends have known and helped, and my failure to give it up completely still makes me cringe in guilt whenever I think of it. So, this is for you.

I try not to bore the bots that document this site's existence by talking about my fondness of most things that fly, but today was something special. The Airbus A380, which may never actually make it into production, landed at LAX on its debut / test run about ten minutes after doing so in New York.

The plane, not too put too fine a point on it, is freakin' huge. So big that it looked to be landing very slowly.

About eight this morning, a full hour and a half before its scheduled arrival, the air above my home was filled with news helicopters staking out their positions. Of course, the police were involved, too, circling as if they had something to contribute. All of this activity would have alerted me to something, even if I hadn't known about it.

The best vantage point on the ground would have been at In-and-Out burger near the airport. From all accounts, though, it was filled to capacity as early as six in the morning, which is far too early for me to even think about getting a 3X3, animal style.

The plane landed without incident, and I wasn't the only in the neighborhood outside  looking at it. I don't know what effect this will have on our local "shut down LAX" group, but I'm glad some of us see the benefits to living near the airport. Sure, it's noisy and polluting, but it's also one of the better places to see planes.

Now that the plane's landed, most of the helicopters have gone off in search of fires or car chases. About the only one left is the police, doing God knows what.

This weekend marks the return of Formula One racing, the 2007 edition. The cars sound better than ever, especially when listened to very loud, look better than ever, and with the notable exceptions of Michael Shumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya, the drivers are all back, too (even the one who most resembles a twelve year old girl).

This may also, because of proposed rule changes, be the last year I follow the sport. One of differences between F1 and any other motor sport is that the cars had to be constructed by the teams from scratch. The teams built the cars, hired the drivers, and tested them against the other teams. Starting next year, a proposed rule change would allow the teams to buy cars and race them, and I think that would render the Constructor's Trophy just plain silly. If they go that way, they may lose me as a follower, and I'm sure they're taking that into consideration.

This year, also, they've added a little light just in front of the cockpit that will indicate if the car and its driver has suffered excessive g-forces during a crash. This would alert rescue personnel about the wisdom of moving the driver, and I expect something like this to be on all cars in the future. It's a simple thing and could save many neck and spine injuries.

Of course, the little light would have blown up when David Purley set the record for survivable g-forces back in 1977 when he and his LEC experienced 178 gs (!!) when they went from traveling over 100mph to zero in about two feet. The fact that he lived through it prevents us from saying it came to a dead stop. Yeah, he was messed up and broke not a few bones, but he lived to race again. I've heard his car is on display somewhere, Doninghill I think.

So it may be a bitter-sweet season for me. I guess it's progress and all for the best, but it's also another indication that the world I grew up in and loved is the also past.

When I'm sick I often make a big pot of chicken soup. Not only does it take my mind off my sniffles, but it's also a good way of getting rid of that crisper full of deteriorating vegetables.The first thing you need to do is buy or slay a chicken. I don't raise them, so I go to the store and get one in a convenient plastic bag. I put a big pot on the stove and pull the chicken out of the bag, making sure to toss out the healthy, good pieces that they stick inside the bird. Yes, I know that those goodies are the equivalent of the wheat germ and kernel and are prized by those who are concerned about their health and well-being, but I don't eat innards. To me, animals are prized for their muscles.

Into the pot I drop the washed chicken, sometimes including the neck, and add as much water as the pot will hold. Then, I go do something else for an hour or so and looking at naked ladies on the Internet makes the time pass quickly.

After an hour or so, I skim off the foam and pull the chicken from the pot and set it on a carving board. If I threw the neck in, I throw it away or remove the bones and treat my dog. Then I go do something else until the chicken is cool enough to handle and, once again, this step doesn't necessarily include marvelling over the female body.

When the chicken's cooled, I peel off the skin and give it to the dogs, who, by now, consider me godlike, and strip off all the meat and put it back in the pot. I then add salt, pepper, and whatever spices I can find in the cupboard. Last week when I did this, this meant basil, paprika, sage, rosemary, thyme, and celery seeds. There are traditional spices, which I'm sure you're all aware of, but if you don't add too much of something, you can toss in anything just to get rid of it.

I then raid the refrigerator for vegetables. Pretty much anything not slimy or limp can be added, and anything that doesn't go in the pot goes in the trash. So, not only do I get a big pot of soup, I clean the refrigerator! Carrots are a must, but last week all I had was one small bag of baby carrots so they had to carry a weight far beyond their tiny mass. Celery is another given, and as often as not I'll chop it on an angle just to be different. When I don't do that, I try to slice the stalks lengthwise to see how poor my hand-eye coordination is or how far I can make it down the stalk before leaving the middle and venturing off to the side.

This secret ingredient that makes this recipe mine is leeks. I'm never sure which part to use, but I always use just the green part. Those are cut into one inch squares, and I'm convinced they add something to the mix, if only a slight green tint. Last week I also added a green bell pepper and, a half hour or so before the soup was done, fresh parsley and green onions. And a potato because I'd added too much salt, skins and all.

I let the soup cook for another hour or so and, since it had too much green and not enough other colors, I added a red bell pepper, which honestly could have rattled around in the drawer for another week or so. To make the soup noodly I usually add flat egg noodles, but I didn't have any so I tossed in a healthy portion of bowtie pasta along with those last roughage adding ingredients.

When the pasta was done, about as long as it took me to watch some news, I put a portion in a big bowl and ate it with bread heels, getting rid of those, too. Not only was the soup salty, but it was soft enough that my recently stitched gums stayed stitched!

No,my soup isn't anywhere near as consistent as Progresso's or Campbell's, and, perhaps, not as good, but that just adds to my enjoyment. Since I usually only eat this when I'm stuffed up, I never know how it tastes, but going through the steps of creating it takes my mind off my troubles.

Usually.

When something unexpected happens to me, the worst part is that I'm usually not prepared for it. It's a lot like I hadn't even planned for it to happen.

Yesterday I was sitting at my computer playing some game or trying to invent a new resume that would be met with something other than derisive laughter when my dog went nuts. He does that a lot, being part of my family, so after a little bit I went to see what was bothering him this time. It's usually something simple, like rapists or marauding bandits intent on destroying the family home, but this time it was an old guy with gray hair and a matching gray moustache.

He also had spit up on his polo shirt, which took away from his likelihood of doing me harm in my eyes.

"Do the Kremers still live here?" he asked, and I admitted they did. People selling stuff don't often know my name.

"Is that a pit bull?" he asked, pointing at Minardi. I thought it would discourage him if I said so, so I did. It's not a total lie, I think there may be some pit in him. "I have one, too," he said, ruining that obstacle I'd set in his path.

"Are you Richard Kremer?" he asked, and I told him Richard was dead. It's true, but that didn't stop him. I may have gone so far as to tell him I'm Russell.

This old guy looks at me and tells me he's Bob Weinstein.

When I was growing up the people next door were the Weinsteins (not to be confused with the Weinbergs, who were across the street). I thought at first that this guy may have to be the surviving father, but I was wrong. Bob was then, and is now, a couple years older than me, which may explain his gray hair and aged appearance. He doesn't look at all the same age as the mental picture I have of myself.
He called me Rusty, which sealed my fate and made me cringe.

We spoke for a half hour or so and he was a genuinely nice guy. Since he's a couple years older, we were never real close. It was a big deal when you're eight not to hang around six year olds, but he didn't tease me as much as some others I remember. All the kids right around our house were a couple years older than me, so I had to venture farther down the block to find Cathy, who was my childhood friend. Later on, when I could cross the street, I discovered a couple boys who were more into playing army and less into playing circus stars and throwing darts at me and into my forehead.

Bob let me know all about his kids and his older brother, Dave, whom I'd forgotten about entirely. To tell the truth, I don't remember much of my formative years at all, and struggled to find much to remember about Bob. Oh, sure, there was the time his mom spanked for us for climbing all over her car, but he didn't remember that.

I'll probably never see him again, but it was good.