If you know me at all...

If you know me at all ... you've probably heard me say something like “I’m not religious at all.”  I don't believe in the existence of a god (or gods), but I don't like to describe myself as an atheist – there's way too much baggage that comes along with that term, especially the Dawkins-style belligerence, arrogance, and evangelism.  This fellow sounds a lot like me, but he explains it mo' better...

Trimming and cooking...

Trimming and cooking...  Irreproducible scientific study results are becoming more and more of a problem, especially when combined with a largely credulous population supplying the funds for these studies (through their taxes)...

Morning conjunction...

Morning conjunction...  I was up before dawn this morning, and outside with the dogs.  The moon was fairly high in the sky to the southeast, and very close to it (0.3° according to an astronomical events page) was a bright star: Aldebaran. It's startling to see the two bright objects in such close proximity.

The dogs didn't notice :)

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  There's some progress on our construction to report.  The excavated soil has been removed from around our new foundations, and some good topsoil has been brought in to fill in some low spots.  This morning, a truck drove in and dropped off the lumber for the sub-floors, I think enough for both the sun room and the mud room.  Some photos below.

The joists are interesting for how they're made (see ends in the first photo below).  In the bad old days, we'd have used solid fir 2x10s or maybe 2x12s (for a long enough span).  Not any more.  The joist of choice these days is 100% engineered wood.  The web (the long vertically-oriented bit of each joist in the first photo) is OSB (Oriented Strand Board) with the chips deliberately randomly oriented.  This provides a nearly ideal web, with equal strength in either tension or compression in all directions.  A solid board, with its grain oriented along the length of the board, must be thicker to achieve the same strength.  The flanges are made of 10-ply plywood, roughly an inch and a quarter thick.  These plies are all oriented linearly, and they are all clear (free of knots).  Taken together, they have the strength of a piece of perfectly clear solid wood, even though they're much longer than one would normally be able to buy clear wood.  They're perfectly straight, and not prone to warping.  They're also much cheaper than clear wood, as they can be made from short sections butt-jointed together (with only one layer jointed at any particular location).  It's really quite ingenious how these engineered wood joists simultaneously improve quality and strength while lowering cost.

Healthcare insurance, part 75,992...

Healthcare insurance, part 75,992...  Just finished processing a small pile of EOBs (explanations of benefits), medical bills, and statements, and I feel the need to vent.

The document tally at the moment for Debbie's injury in May stands at 57.  All of these arrived in the mail; not one provider can do it electronically.  Once again I found the three things (EOBs, bills, and invoices) utterly impossible to reconcile with each other.  That means, of course, that I have no idea which ones are right.  I have absolutely no way of telling what I should be paying.  Everyone I've asked at the hospital commiserates – but can't really help either.

On the two occasions when I thought there might actually be an error (these were both with previous incidents, not Debbie's most recent injury), upon digging into them with the help of the hospital business staff we discovered items that weren't disclosed on any of the documents I received.  No matter how skilled I was at dissecting EOBs, bills, and statements, I'd never have been able to figure those out on my own.  What a mess!  It's as though you go to the grocery store and nothing is marked with a price, plus the store just added on random charges that they didn't bother telling you about – but expected you to pay nonetheless.

This situation isn't entirely Obamacare's fault, though the reporting requirements it added certainly contributed.  This all started, I think, with the standardization of insurance billing process – something that sounds good in theory, but in the end created an entire industry of “coding” (see ICD-10 codes), a nightmare mess of separate billing, and absolutely zero ability for the consumer (the patient) to select a provider based, even in part, on price.  The separate billing is like something out of a bad Hollywood script – except it's reality!  The last time Debbie visited her surgeon for a post-surgery followup, we received the following bills (and an allegedly matching EOB for each): the surgeon, the surgeon's office, the X-ray technician, the radiologist, the lab (for blood work), and a charge I have yet to figure out.  That's twelve bills and EOBs, for a 30 minute followup visit.  I have to believe there was more effort expended on the billing than on the actual visit!

What really rankles at the moment is this: because of Obamacare, I have no way to opt out of this craziness.  We must participate, or be penalized (and it's  a big damned penalty, too!).  That doesn't feel like America to me.  The government is dictating how we get our healthcare, and if I don't like it (and I don't!), I can't do anything about it.  That's a system that belongs in some place like China or North Korea, not here...

A young friend of ours...

A young friend of ours ... just got back from a trip with his wife that included a swing through Croatia (specifically, Zagreb and Zadar).  As we talked about it, I discovered that he had no idea that there had been a recent war in the area, and that not far from the cities he visited, NATO (primarily American) forces bombed Serb forces.  He and his wife found the people there friendly and welcoming, which I was very glad to hear.

But it got me to pondering...

I wonder if my perception is accurate – that on average, younger Americans today have much less historical context than I did at their age.  It surely seems that way to me, but I have little way to gauge that.  My friend's joking excuse is that he wasn't really sentient at the time, which is really a way of saying that he never saw it on the news, so for him it didn't actually happen.  That is so different than my own historical context, which was acquired nearly entirely by reading. 

Makes me wonder if it's just that I'm weird (something that I'm well aware of :), or has something in our culture changed – to make it even harder for us to learn from history.  After all, if you never even heard about events like the Bosnian War, how can you learn from them?

And then inevitably my pondering leads down a path that leads to me despairing about low information American voters...

I'm so glad we escaped California...

I'm so glad we escaped California ... before this blew up!  I have to admit, though, that part of me is very curious what magic the progressives will attempt to invoke to make this problem go away ... and I'm a bit afraid that they'll succeed in making it a national problem, thereby opening up the opportunity to pick my pocket to help pay for their fecklessness...

A formula for instant tears...

A formula for instant tears...  For me, at least.  Chris Muir's dad died yesterday, and he posted this strip:

This just may be...

This just may be ... the single worst set of assembly instructions I've ever encountered.  For a couple of hours this morning, I assembled a 48" diameter round table that we recently purchased to go on the new deck we're building.  This one-page instructions were the only help packed in the box.  There were 10 metal castings (only 4 of which are on the diagram), 16 bolts, 16 flat washers, 16 lock washers, and 16 nuts – and this one sheet.

It wasn't all that hard to figure out where each part went, but the fact that they needed to be assembled in a particular order wasn't so obvious.  I made several false starts before I finally figured it out.  I've been spoiled these last few years with “kits” that were easy to assemble and came with assembly excellent instructions.  This kit was neither.  I had to modify several of the parts before they'd assemble correctly: one needed to be slightly bent, and two needed holes drilled out slightly before the bolts would fit in them.

On the other hand, the finished table is very nice.  The castings are all of solid aluminum, strong and relatively lightweight.  The entire thing is beautifully finished.  I'm happy with the end result, but not so thrilled with how I got there :)

Sunrise in Paradise...

Sunrise in Paradise...  It was beautiful this morning...

Puppy update...

Puppy update...  A couple of milestones in the past few days.

First, while Mako and Cabo still largely behave like puppies, they look like little dogs.  So we're changing their category to "doglet".

Second, Cabo - that fierce little doglet - tracked, attacked, killed, and tried to eat her first vole.  We got it away from her before she swallowed it, and fulsomely rewarded her.  Good doglet!

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Yesterday morning Debbie and I made an early morning trip out to Hardware Ranch, looking for wildlife.  In order to leave early, I went out before sunrise, when it was just light enough to see (and I have great night vision), to move hand lines (irrigation pipes).  These three strings of hand lines belong to my friend and neighbor Tim D., who asked me to move them for him while he was on a trip to Montana with his son.  The three strings have a total of 18 pipes in them, mostly 40' long with a few shorter ones.  In all three strings, the job was the same: one at a time unhook and pick up the pipes, move them 30' to the next location, put them down and hook them up.  There are always a bunch of small challenges – pipes that are jammed such that they're hard to unhook, pipes that are bent and hard to hook up, getting the pipes in exactly the right place, and so on.  There's nothing really hard about the job, either physically or mentally, but still it requires one's full attention – you can't do that work well while daydreaming about something else.  You can, however, take a few moments here and there to look around you at the beautiful early morning scenery, which I did.  I particularly love the play of the early morning light on the mountaintops to our west, which occurs long before the sun rises from behind the mountains to light the valley floor.

After I finished moving the hand lines, around 7 am, Debbie and I took off.  It was a lovely morning, clear and crisp, and we were nearly the only ones on the road.  That meant we could easily dawdle wherever we felt like dawdling, to gawk at whatever was gawkable.  We made generous use of this opportunity :)

We saw several deer, but mainly we saw birds.  Lots of birds!  The ones I recall include a male Bullock's Oriole feeding a juvenile, lots of Cedar Waxwings (especially up at Hardware Ranch itself), four juvenile Robins taking a bath in the stream, a single Lazuli Bunting (photo at right, not mine), a juvenile swallow sitting on a fence post just a few feet from us, a Sandhill Crane pair with a juvenile, and a warbler that was a bright yellow-green.  That's quite a lot of sightings for one little trip where we never even left the car!

Yesterday was Pioneer Day, a Utah state holiday, though today is when it's generally observed.  The Boy Scouts came early this morning to plant a flag by our driveway, and all the local roads are now festooned with flags just like it in nearly every driveway.  The Boy Scouts charge a nominal fee for this service, but if you multiply that by how many households participate, you'll see that they're raising a substantial fund.  This patriotic spirit is so different than what we saw in San Diego, and I'm sure it's the same in every big city in the land.  You'd feel odd there if you were to put up a flag on the patriotic holidays.  It's basically the complete opposite here, where you'd feel odd if you didn't.

Today the Federal Express man delivered a big box with a pair of chairs destined for our sun room.  Debbie's been busy collecting furnishings while we wait for the room to be built :)   They're made of cast aluminum, so they're strong and lightweight (and also weatherproof, though that doesn't really matter in the sun room).  Naturally they were a kit :)  I spent an hour or so barking my knuckles while wielding a pair of open end wrenches to bolt it all together.  The chairs look nicely made, and strong.  The swivel and rocker mechanisms work great.  The seats are nice and wide, and the cushions are comfortable.  About my only complaint is that the chairs are an inch or so lower to the ground than I'd prefer (and I have short, stubby little legs!).  Right now the chairs are on our second floor, awaiting completion of their new home...

BLTs, again...

BLTs, again...  Those BLTs we had the other day were so good that we decided on a repeat performance.  Everything was the same except for how I cooked the bacon – I tried a technique I'd heard about: baking the bacon in the oven.  Bottom line: I don't think we'll ever cook bacon any other way again!  I used a aluminum cookie sheet, lined it with aluminum foil, and baked the bacon in a 400° oven.  The bacon was thick-cut, and I cooked it for 14 minutes until my eyeballs said it was done.  All the strips were identically cooked, which was already much better than stove-top.  I didn't have to turn over the bacon, and the cleanup was a breeze.  No more stove-top bacon for us!

A pleasant surprise...

A pleasant surprise...  A few days ago I ordered an automatic door closer for my office door.  The main goal was to make sure the door always remained shut on the air conditioned space (the rest of the shed's second floor is a veritable blast furnace in the summer).  A secondary goal was to ensure that the door never slammed shut too hard, as the acoustic panels mounted to my ceiling with magnets can be jostled loose if the building shakes too much.

So I chose a well-reviewed model (photo at right) and looked over the reviews.  A surprising number of them mentioned challenges in installing the unit – nothing that reflected on the quality of the unit itself, just that it was tricky and time-consuming (one to two hours).  I really didn't see any reason that it would be, but I steeled myself for the challenge UPS was going to deliver.

I received it yesterday, and installed it this afternoon.  The instructions were crystal clear.  It comes with a paper template that was easy to use, and was spot on.  I drilled six pilot holes, spun in six screws, mounted the arm, adjusted it, and voila! ... I had a door closer.  Total elapsed time: 12 minutes.  Challenge level (1-10 scale): 1.5.  Which leads to a ponder: who the heck are those people who wrote the reviews that had me a bit concerned about how hard this would be? 

One lesson here: when I read in Amazon reviews that installation or assembly was “challenging”, I'm going to be a bit more skeptical of that than I have been :)

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Well, the extra dirt didn't all get cleaned up, as I suspected :)  To be fair, though, most of it is cleaned up – and I'm promised final cleanup on Monday.

I've been trying for nearly a year now to get a contractor (who shall remain unnamed) to install sprinklers in our yard.  We're also potentially interested in “fixing” our lawn, which in the areas immediately around the house is quite a mess.  There are lots of holes, it's far from flat, and in some places there are more weeds than grass – and where there's more grass, most if it is fast-growing native grass that looks more like a hay field than a lawn.  This unnamed contractor keeps promising to get going on our project, but at this point I've given up.  So I got a reference to another contractor, and he will be here on Monday to scope out the job.  If that doesn't scare him away, maybe we'll have some action this year (which is my goal).

Someday we'll probably have a straightforward project around our place, but ... the sprinkler system we need is not that project.  One complication is that a nice, paved driveway separates our lawn into two sections, and we don't want to dig up the driveway.  We have a solution for that, though: the 8" diameter Paradise water feed goes under the driveway now, and we will no longer need it after this project is finished – so we can use that as a tunnel to get the sprinkler water and wires through.  Another complication is our need to deal with highly variable pressure from the Paradise water feed.  The flow rate is generally fine, but the pressure often dips too low to reliably run sprinklers.  The new contractor instantly recommended a holding tank and pump solution: a standard and reliable way to handle the problem.  Finally, because Paradise water is full of all sorts of junk including weed seeds, we need a filter system to keep all that off the lawn.  The new contractor has a favorite solution for this, using water filters from an Israeli firm.  They're easy to clean, he tells me, which is music to my ears.  So I have hope :)

Yesterday I made lunch for Debbie and I: a BLT for her and a turkey sandwich for my own.  She pronounced the BLT “best BLT evah!”, so today she sent me out to buy the necessary ingredients for a repeat performance.  My turkey sandwich, using turkey ends from Lower's, was outstanding.  Today we're going to make an outing to the Maddox drive-in, as a treat for both of us.

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  The construction effort is progressing, albeit more slowly than we would like.  The current work involves removing about 10 cubic yards of soil that was dug out for the foundations of our mud room and our sun room.  They're planning to be done with that today, but I suspect they will not.  Jim J. (our contractor) came over today to talk doors: he had some details from the factory on just what doors we could possibly have made, and this required a bit of compromise (nothing we really object to) for two of our doors.  Naturally those were the two we asked for really odd things on :)  Jim also told me to expect some lumber to show up soon, as they're just about ready to build the floors.

Yesterday evening the low sun angle made a pretty scene in the trees next to our shed.  My brother Scott tells me they're some kind of cherry, with this bright red foliage.  Some photos:

This morning, bright and early, we drove up to the Logan Regional hospital for Debbie to take her first hydrotherapy session.  The pool there is very much like the one shown at right.  The floor of the pool is a treadmill, and the floor can be arbitrarily raised (right up to even with the pool's edges) or lowered (to 7' deep).  The walls of the pool are festooned with cameras which can be selected for viewing on a big monitor.  This lets both the patient and the therapist see exactly what's happening.  Getting Debbie into the pool could hardly be any easier: the therapist raised the floor all the way up, we wheeled her onto the (now dry) pool floor, she stood up (holding onto those rails) and the therapist lowered her down into the water.  By adjusting her depth, he could precisely control how much weight she was actually putting on her surgical leg – and she got to practice walking while only putting a small fraction of her total weight onto that leg.  The session went well, especially in that she increased her range of motion by 5°!  A few more sessions like that and she'll have full range of motion back!

It's really hard to beat...

It's really hard to beat ... meeting up with old friends, which is what we did for part of yesterday.  Despite our sketchy appearance, the folks at Jack's Wood Fired Pizza let us in for lunch (trade was slow, admittedly).  For those of who don't know us, that's Debbie and I in the lower row.  Left-to-right in the upper row is Doug W. (whom I've known for over 25 years – he and I worked together at Stac Electronics), his sister Marilyn (who lives fairly close to us, in Ogden), and Doug's wife Dee.  As always, their visit was too short for us – but it was really nice to see them again.  Doug gets up here to northern Utah a couple times a year, mainly for church-related activities, and Dee often comes with him for activities of her own.  We have some hope of seeing them once in a while :)

Yesterday was also a big day for Debbie: this was her first time out to a restaurant since her injury in late May.  Jack's was a great selection for that outing, with their delicious soups and pizzas, and this time complete with great company!

If you're wondering who took the photo, it was our waiter.  He told me that he took two photos, in case one didn't turn out.  In fact he took four, all just a fraction of a second apart.  I suspect he's not an iPhone expert :)

Quote of the day...

Quote of the day...  From Ace:

People are so horrifically stupid that I cannot wait until the aliens come and kill us all. I'll actually be on their side. When they show up, I'm going to sneak towards their space armada and offer my services as a behind-the-lines saboteur and quisling.

I know exactly how he feels...

I don't need no steenking recipes!

I don't need no steenking recipes!  Quite a few years ago I started asking my mom for recipes for the dishes I liked so much.  Many – perhaps most – of the recipes I asked for elicited the same answer: “I don’t have a recipe for that!”  For example, I love the doughy dinner rolls she made, and that's what she said when I asked for that recipe.

Finally, after many entreaties, she finally agreed to write down a recipe for those dinner rolls.  This was in the mid-'80s.  When I got the recipe, it was a list of ingredients – without amounts – and some very vague directions like “bake at medium until done”.  I didn't even bother trying with that recipe :)

But the next time she came out to California to visit us, I figured I had a foolproof scheme: I'd ask her to make the rolls while I watched and recorded what she did.  How could that fail?

It did, though, and fairly spectacularly.  The first problem was that she didn't measure anything, literally – she took out a mixing bowl and threw in flour and the other ingredients until it “looked right”.  I had no clue how much of anything she'd put in.  Then while she was mixing and kneading, she added more random quantities.  Even that wasn't the end, though: when she put it in the oven, she checked it periodically and changed the temperature while it was baking.  Again, those adjustments were based on how it looked.  At that point, I simply gave up.

Years later, she started writing down some actual recipes and passing them along, including those dinner rolls.  I tried making some of those recipes, with results that were dubious at best.  I like to think of myself as a reasonably competent cook, but there's no way I could make something like dinner rolls without a recipe – and no way I could tell by how the dough looked that it needed, say, a touch more salt.

In the '90s, on another of her visits to us, I talked with mom about that seat-of-the-pants cooking style.  She told me that she was taught to cook that way.  She had recipes, but considered them just guidelines and starting points – that “obviously” you'd have to adjust them on the fly to make them work right.  I think she pitied me for my inability to understand directions like “until it looks right” :)

I now have a pile of recipes from her.  But I have little hope of ever recreating the dishes as she made them...

Jupiter, from “below”...

Jupiter, from “below” ... where “below” means looking straight at Jupiter's south pole.  It's an old photo, made when Cassini passed by Jupiter on it's way to Saturn in 2008.  Old, but beautiful!