The piano rule

The other day (Wednesday, April 28, 2010) I was mowing lawn with our fabulous Husqvarna zero-turn lawnmower.
A zero-turn is heavy, probably 600-700 pounds.
A zero-turn is a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.
Ours is a residential zero-turn, not the megabuck zero-turns used by commercial mowing services.
Nevertheless, it's a big monster, 48-inch cut.
I headed down a path, what turned out to be a Slough of Despond.
Within seconds I was stuck, spinning the drive-wheels in the muck.
I dismounted; the mower would have to be pulled out.
I tried pulling, but it's heavy.
My wife came out.
“Here, lemme help.
UNH!”
Two creaky geezers pulling 600-700 pounds.
“What do we hafta do?” she asked. “Get it on dry ground?”
Shoving from the rear was impossible, no footing.
I contemplated pulling it out with my semi-retired rider, my other mower.
We pulled the front, and moved it a few inches.
A little more, and I was able to drive out.
Many years ago, winter of 1966-'67, we drove out into the snow-covered remains of a cornfield near Geneseo in my Corvair.
A Corvair has its engine in the rear, engine weight over the driving wheels. I thought it wouldn't get stuck.
But we did.
My wife-to-be got out and started pushing.
“WHOA!” I thought to myself.
An actual woman not afraid to help me move a piano.
Every woman I'd known previously seemed to be the antithesis of that.
Heavy work was men's work.
After extracting our zero-turn, I restated the cardinal rule.
“I married you because you'd help me move a piano.”

• My wife of 42+ years is “Linda.”
• RE: “Two creaky geezers.....” —We're both 66.
• “Geneseo” (jen-uh-SEE-oh”) is a small college town south of Rochester, NY. My wife-to-be was studying library science there. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. At that time I had just graduated college, and was living in Rochester.

Billing

The other day (Tuesday, April 27, 2010) my wife called billing at University of Rochester Medical Center to attempt to make sense of two items we received.
Were they bills or not?
One clearly was, but the other was a “statement,” their term.
My wife makes the phonecalls, because my ability to carry on a verbal conversation is somewhat compromised by my stroke.
That's not writing; that's speaking.
Writing still works fine.
Parrying a phonecall can be messy. I can do it, but things often go awry.
I used to get this at the Mighty Mezz calling Doc Abraham in Naples over some indiscernible hairball in his “Green Thumb” column.
Doc died a while ago; the Messenger no longer publishes “Green Thumb.”
Doc never knew I'd had a stroke, so was frustrated by my garbled telephone conversation.
A while ago a “statement” appeared, I paid it, and my payment got credited to another account.
Our figuring this out was after trying to make sense of the disappeared credit, which had been applied to another outstanding bill of ours.
Finally, after “We value your call” and “Please hold during the silence: BOOM-chicka-BOOM-chicka-BOOM-chicka-BOOM-chicka,” my wife got a real person.
It was concluded we were to pay both items, but we were to use the account number on the “statement” to assure proper credit.
The bill and the “statement” had different account numbers.
Yet both had “University of Rochester Medical Center” at the top.
In fact, the “statement” may have had both account numbers.
We both have college degrees.
“Their system is messy,” I calmly observed.
“Just pay everything you get, lest we blow you in to authorities.
If you pay twice, no problem. Just send us your money!”
I hope they get bombarded with queries.
But fixing it may make things worse.
Bureaucrats with their donut-break interrupted.
You can always tell these people.
They roar by you on the expressway at 80-90 mph, so they can be first at the water-cooler.

• My wife of 42+ years is “Linda.”
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty putting words together.)
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “Green Thumb” was a weekly column by gardiner Doc Abraham and his wife of nearby Naples ('NAY-pullz”), NY. We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. Naples is south of where we live. “Green Thumb” ran nationwide, but was close to the Messenger. Naples is at the south end of Canandaigua lake.

All over Creation......

Yesterday (Tuesday, April 27, 2010) was errand overload.
I had three errands, all many miles apart, so that my entire sojourn was about 60 miles, more than three gallons of gas at 19 miles-per-gallon.
First was good old Hahn Graphic (“hahn”) in Rochester, to pick up my fabulous Nikon D100 digital camera, which had been left there months ago for service.
Hahn Graphic is probably the premier supplier of photographic equipment in the Rochester area.
Second was Funky-Food-Market in deepest, darkest Henrietta to pick up a case of puffed-corn cereal I had ordered.
Third was OfficeMax across from Eastview Mall, to get a sale-price on two 500-gig stand-alone supplemental hard-drives we had just purchased.
Hahn goes back eons, clear to 1969.
It was where I purchased my first Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic 35mm SLR camera.
It also was where I purchased many lenses.
The Spotmatic served me over 40 years, although I was no longer using its metering function.
I kept using it until Nikon made its D100 available.
I bought one at Hahn, thereby retiring the Spotmatic.
Many of my pictures in this blog were taken with the D100.
When I first went to Hahn they were on Driving Park, affiliated with Hahn Automotive next door.
Hahn was apparently sold, and they moved to an old city firehouse on Dewey Ave.
Not far from Aquinas.
It's no longer the original owners, or the guy who sold me the Spotmatic.
“So what if I wanna upgrade?” I asked. “Trade my D100 for Nikon's latest model?”
The salesman took a D300 out of the showcase.
“Here, try it,” he said.
I looked at it. “Zippity-do,” I said. “Looks like a get a bigger image-display, but that appears to be all I get.”
“It's higher megapixel too,” he added.
“But for what I do, my D100 seems to be enough,” I said. “I ain't a pro.
I'm using Photoshop Elements 4.0,” I said. “I'm sure more recent PEs are available.”
“I'm sure there are,” the salesman said. “But if 4.0 is adequate, I wouldn't upgrade.
I use Photoshop 6.0. More recent upgrades are available, but I'm doing fine with 6.0, so I'm not upgrading.”
Next was Lori's, almost a half-hour trip from Hahn. Hahn was over an hour from our house.
It's Arrowhead Mills Puffed-Corn cereal; 12 six-ounce plastic bags per case.
I get it because it's just puffed corn; no added salt or sugar.
Once you stop using salt, you notice if stuff has salt in it.
It's bitter.
It's why we never eat out. Restaurant food is often bitter; too salty.
I tried getting a case of Arrowhead Mills Puffed-Corn cereal from Amazon.
They wanted less per case than Lori's, but a fortune for shipping.
It ended up costing more per bag.
Back to Lori's.
There are other online suppliers of Arrowhead Mills Puffed-Corn cereal, but not right now. That's future research. A 50¢ savings is not worth it if I hafta hit Lori's anyway.
My last stop was OfficeMax; another half-hour journey.
Back on the expressway, and out 490.
I was immediately pounced on by a sales associate as I walked in the store.
“What's wrong?” she asked.
“Oh nothing,” I said. “The price we paid for these things was this.” I showed her my receipt.
“Your news circular had 'em for way less.” I showed her the news circular.
“We were told if we brought in the boxes, receipt, and news circular, we could get 'em for the lower price.”
“That's an adjustment,” she said. “But ya didn't need to bring in the boxes.”
“Your clerk said they needed the boxes,” I said.
“And who was that?” she asked.
“No idea,” I said.
“Your receipt is all you need.”
She directed me toward a checkout clerk.....
….who scanned my boxes.

• The “Funky-Food-Market” is Lori's Natural Foods.
• “Deepest, darkest Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester.
• “Eastview Mall” is a large shopping-mall southeast of Rochester.
• “SLR” is single-lens-reflex. At that time ('60s) most cameras were twin-lens-reflex — separate lenses for both the camera and the viewfinder. A twin-lens-reflex causes parallax error, the camera sees different than what the viewfinder sees. The photographer has to aim for what the camera will see. —In single-lens-reflex the viewfinder and camera both use the same lens; a flop-up mirror is interposed to direct the image into the viewfinder. The mirror flops up to expose the film, which is what you hear when an SLR shoots. SLRs were revolutionary when introduced, but now nearly all cameras are SLR.
• The “Spotmatic” had an integral light-meter, but it could be tricked.
• “Driving Park” is a fairly large west/east street in northwest Rochester. “Dewey Ave.” is a main north/south drag in northwest Rochester. Driving Park crosses it, so Hahn didn't move far. “Aquinas” is a Catholic high-school on Dewey.
• RE: “Higher megapixel.....” —The sensitivity of a digital camera's image-recorder is measured in megapixels. A D100 appears to be 6.3 megapixels; a D300 is 12.3. It can resolve tighter. (To me, a D100 is good enough.)
• We (me and my wife of 42+ years, “Linda”) live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.
• Amazon.com, an online Internet seller.
• Interstate-490 is the interstate southeast out of Rochester to the Thruway; Interstate-90 from Albany to Buffalo and west. The Thruway doesn't go through Rochester.

My-Cast®

(The green is rain.)

Yesterday (Sunday, April 25, 2010) I decided to fiddle my My-Cast® computer weather-radar.
My-Cast was recommended to me long ago by a co-worker at the mighty Mezz.
It's a web-site that can display weather-radars around locations you set up.
I set up locations nationwide, but the two nearby were “home” and “the mighty Mezz.”
I set it up after riding my motorcycle to work in clear weather.
But soon after I got there, a monstrous thunderstorm deluged the area, a front with a squall-line passing.
It was so gusty I was afraid my motorcycle was gonna blow over, but it didn't.
If I'd had any idea that squall was coming I wouldn't have ridden.
My-Cast would have showed me.
So every morning before riding my motorcycle to work, I'd fire up my My-Cast.
My-Cast also renders forecasts.
I also started firing up my My-Cast before mowing lawn.
Mowing lawn takes an hour or more, enough time for a squall to move in.
I also have an application on my cellphone, “VZ Navigator.”
It's a GPS navigation system, although I never use it.
It also can render the exact coordinates, latitude and longitude, of where it is, e.g. home.
I could be more precise with my original My-Cast “home” location, which was slopped.
So I stood with my cellphone in front of the Messenger to get its exact coordinates.
That was better than “the mighty Mezz” in the middle of Canandaigua Lake.
Of course, my doing so was rather silly.
My My-Cast weather-radar displays an area 170 miles wide (see picture).
I can do 90 miles wide, but don't because it's jaggy.
As such it displayed both “home” and “the mighty Mezz” — The mighty Mezz was about 15 miles from home.
I decided weather-radar at “the mighty Mezz” was no longer pertinent since retirement, but nearby Baker Park was.
We often take our dog to Baker Park.
So I unholstered my cellphone in the Baker Park parking-lot to get the exact coordinates, which are latitude 42 degrees/53 minutes/35.8 seconds, longitude 77 degrees/17 minutes/56.5 seconds.
I then dumped “the mighty Mezz,” and added “Canandaigua."
Which I later renamed “Baker Park,” and fiddled to the exact coordinates.

• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away, and at the north end of a NY Finger Lake, “Canandaigua Lake.”)
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester, about 15 miles from Canandaigua.
• “Baker Park” is a fairly large city park in Canandaigua. It's nearly all fenced with chain-link, so is fairly safe for a hunter-dog who likes to run away.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s almost five, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up.) —She has learned the joy of hunting.

NOT!

I don't think so; the hood is wrong. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

My most recent issue of Hemmings Classic Car Magazine, June 2010, has a so-called “profile” of the restoration of a 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible.
Not a 4-4-2. A more plebeian Oldsmobile. A convertible, but more the sort of car the average person drove back then.
It has the 350 cubic inch V8 engine, supposedly 310 horsepower. Fairly strong. But not the 4-4-2 megamotor.
I immediately wondered if I had seen the car in the flesh at a tractor festival two years ago in a nearby village.
It wasn't a 4-4-2, but it was gorgeous (pictured above).
And it was red, same color as the featured car.
Probably not. The featured car seems to be from Massachusetts.
Massachusetts is a long way from Western NY.
And a tractor festival seems a strange place to show a car — it was the only classic car there.
Just the same, the car at the tractor festival was gorgeous.
Well done.
A trip to Western NY is not out of the question.
The featured car had apparently been driven to shows in PA.
So perhaps it stopped in Western NY on its way back home.
If this is that car, it's the first car featured in Classic Car Magazine I ever saw in the flesh.
But I doubt it.


The featured car.

• A “4-4-2” was Oldsmobile's version of the hot-rodded GM intermediate body, 1964-on, e.g. the Pontiac G-T-O.
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. The nearby village is Ionia (“eye-OWN-ya”), also in the town of West Bloomfield.

Once you drive OS-X, anything else is an imitation

The other day (Thursday, April 22, 2010) we had two medical appointments at Strong Hospital.
I decided to take along this here new Apple MacBook Pro, a laptop.
As far as I knew, Strong was a hot-spot.
The whole idea of this laptop was portability. It has all the functionality of my old tower, but is also portable.
I would use the laptop's keyboard and trackpad — not as functional as my old Apple keyboard and mouse, which both stand alone, but plug into the laptop.
And run it on the battery. —A charge monitor is right on the display, and I figured I wouldn't be using it long enough to come even close to running it out.
I fired up as soon as we got to Strong.
“Which wireless network do you want to log-in to?” —There were four or five.
Okay, we'll try “guest.”
Nothing! Every one of my saved FireFox tabs — I have nine — showed the yellow log-in error message.
So much for that! I reverted to typing in (finishing) a blog.
Doing so was independent of the Internet.
We went to the second appointment.
I tried logging in again — this time “visitor.”
“Holy mackerel!” I said. “Looks like this is gonna work.”
All my FireFox tabs lit; just like here at home.
I set about uploading a blog to BlogSpot. I could also do Facebook and NASCAR.
My TV was a step back, but this laptop was a step forward.
Techies will crow “So what? Join the new century!”
But us old folks are both 66.
It sure was nice to fiddle my 'pyooter while at Strong.
The second appointment was a Zometa® infusion for my wife.
We were across from a lady getting chemo. Her daughter was there, probably in her 40s.
She studiously avoided us as I played with my laptop.
“Computers! I'm sure glad you understand 'em!”
On our way home we stopped at OfficeMax near Victor across from Eastview Mall.
Intent being to purchase two standalone 500-gig backup hard-drives — to back up our computers.
“I have 16 computers,” the geek salesman crowed. “I drive four at once on a console.”
“At least we're not that bad,” my wife said.
Only two computers, one for each person, one a MAC, and one a Windows PC. Because that's what we're each used to.
We had my laptop along in case I needed a strange plug.
The backup hard-drives were USB.
“So what do you think of your MAC?” the checkout asked. “I just got one.”
“Once you drive OS-X,” I said; “anything else is an imitation.”

• “FireFox” is the Internet browser I use. You can keep multiple “tabs” open of web-sites you often use.
• RE: “Doing so was independent of the Internet......” —I type these blogs into a word-processor on my computer, and then copy/paste onto the blog-site.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• “Computers! I'm sure glad you understand 'em!” is actually my mother-in-law.
• “Victor” is a suburb southeast of Rochester, and north of where we live. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.) —Victor used to be a farm town, and once had three railroads.
• “Eastview Mall” is a large shopping mall near Victor.
• “USB” is Universal-Serial-Bus, what most personal computers use to connect peripherals, like a printer, digital-camera or scanner. It's a simple terminal that connects directly to the computer's motherboard.
• This computer is an Apple Macintosh.

Limbaugh Alert

Rudy.

The other day (probably last Monday, April 19, 2010) I got a letter from Rudy Giuliani.
Actually it was a fund solicitation from the Republican National Committee.
We wondered how in the wide, wide world I ever got on their list.
We're not Republicans.
In fact, we don't belong to any organized political party — we're Democrats.
(That's a stolen joke, readers. —Will Rogers.)
Rudy said our nation was under attack, by Obama and Pelosi and “other leftists.”
“Leftists” is his word. At least it wasn't “fascists.” I've seen that.
To me this demonstrates the sorry state that political debate has denigrated to in this nation.
People are labeled as “Commies,” or “Socialists.”
Cheap Limbaugh theatrics for the blowhard radio crowd.
Clintsky bewails this, and Limbaugh knee-jerks something about how as a result all future mayhem will be Clintsky's fault.
Which Clintsky, quite rightly, says “makes no sense.”
Is this the best Limbaugh can come up with, bouncing up-and-down in an OxyContin® rage?
Now that America is in decline, whoever rises to power automatically becomes reprehensible.
Which begs the question, what if the Tea Party takes over?
What if the cheerleader becomes prez?
I bet resistance arises — the tub-thumpers reorganize. Especially if we get a Depression.
I see that in my old bus-union.
The current leadership was reprehensible and disgusting, as were those before them.
New leadership arises, and automatically becomes disgusting.
Every time I hear the name “Rudy Giuliani,” I think of that picture above of Rudy in drag.
Do we really want someone like that running the country?
The solicitation had an addressed return envelope, postage-paid.
I took advantage of that, and mailed back the letter with “leftists” circled in red. “Limbaugh Alert,” I added.

• “Clintsky” is of course past president Bill Clinton. “The cheerleader” is Sarah Palin.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service. While there I belonged to the Rochester division of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union.

Get outta here with that nav system

The other day (probably Friday, April 16, 2010) I was in the Mens Locker-Room at the Canandaigua YMCA.
Two youngish dudes swaggered in, probably in their late 20s or early 30s.
“So whadya think of that car I soldja?” one asked the other.
“Well, actually I haven't driven it much,” the other answered. “I got it for the wife.”
“I really gotta give you the manual for that thing,” the first dude said.
“I still have it in the house somewhere. With it you can make sense of the navigation system.”
“Well, I fiddled with it some.”
At this point I was tempted to say, but didn't, “when I drive I use a map.” I don't want some navigation system yelling “Hey, where ya goin'?” while I try to avoid Granny.
Or harumphing because I didn't take the road past the bank.
“I'm not from here,” I'd say. “I have no idea what 'the bank' is.......”
“That was the bank Pa and I always used. Where ya goin'?”
And “that's the road to Orange City.”
“Are we supposed to go that way?”
“No! Right, right, RIGHT! Harumph!”
Actually, “map” is not precise.
What I do is Google a destination, and then print all the pertinent Google maps.
A sterling example of this is a trip to Buffalo years ago to a vet.
I printed out what the vet office looked like, from their web-site, and Google Street-Views.
The vet was in Orchard Park, so I printed all the pertinent junctions from the Thruway.
Finding it was a slam-dunk.
I had figured it all out in advance, so could avoid the madding semis.
And people distracted by navigation systems.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “Orchard Park” is a suburb of Buffalo.
• The “Thruway” is the NY State Thruway, Interstate-90 to Albany, and then Interstate-87 down to New York City — a toll road. It skirts Buffalo.

ya gotta make an appointment

Yesterday (Wednesday, April 21, 2010) was a regular quarterly meeting of the dreaded 282 Alumni.
“Dreaded” because my siblings are all flagrantly anti-union.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. While there I belonged to the local division (“Local 282”) of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union (“What’s ‘ah-two'”). Our local holds a regular business meeting the third Thursday of each month.
The so-called “Alumni” are the union retirees of Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY. The Alumni was a reaction to the fact Transit management retirees ran roughshod over union retirees — a continuation of the bad vibes at Transit: management versus union. Transit had a club for long-time employees, and I was in it. It was called the “15/25-year Club;” I guess at first the “25-year Club.” But they lowered the employment requirement, and renamed it “15/25-year Club.” The employment requirement was lowered even more; I joined at 10 years. My employ there ended in 1993 with my stroke; and the “Alumni” didn’t exist then. The Alumni is a special club — you have to join.
The intended speaker didn't show up, so it was more a social get-together.
The meetings are held at the Blue Horizon Restaurant, a grungy dive worthy of consideration for an Extreme Makeover — a la Pennington and his blue-helmeted minions.
It's hard by the Rochester International Airport, in fact right under the northern approach to Runway 22/4, the only active runway for commercial jets.
—That is, it's long enough for commercial jets.
If the wind is from the south or west, planes land on 22, north-to-south.
If the wind is from the north or east, planes land on 4, the same runway, but south-to-north.
Perhaps the Blue Angels could strafe the place; or bomb it with napalm.
If that happened the rest-rooms would be declared a toxic zone.
Cordoned off with yellow “Caution” ribbon.
I had to use the Mens Room after I got there — perish-the-thought.
I went into the toilet stall — the toilet seat was still disconnected and flopping around like it was years ago.
It would never pass muster with my wife.
The seat was covered with filth — cooties.
Gas-station rest rooms are better, except the bowl seemed to be cleaned.
Usually at gas-stations they aren't.
The stall door-lock was dysfunctional; you had to depend on it being jammed shut.
The rest-room light was a bare 25-watt bulb.
Into the dark-and-dirty dungeon.
Since there were about 30 of us, we had the separate conference-room.
Um, it's not the Hotel Roanoke.
Probably the only users of that conference-room are us Alumni — and perhaps the Teamsters.
The place is a restaurant, so the attendees all eat there.
But I never do.
I can imagine some corpulent hairball in a sweaty tee-shirt slaving over a hot grill slathered with grease.
“What'll ya have, Hon?” the flopsy overweight waitress asked.
“Two eggs-over-easy, two sausage patties, rye toast, bacon and coffee,” a patron responded.
“And what'll you have?” the waitress asked me.
“Just this coffee,” I said. The Alumni pays for the coffee.
Passenger jets were flying right over the Blue Horizon approaching Runway 22.
The wind was from the south.
They were muffled, but you could hear them. And they cast a moving shadow as they passed over.
After the meeting I stepped outside, and a commercial jet was on final approach aimed at Runway 22.
It was aimed about 10 degrees to the right of the runway.
“I hope that sucker has it right,” I thought. “I bet it ain't Sullenberger.” (Sully retired on March 3 of this year.)
I parked myself across from my old friend Gary Colvin (“coal-VIN”), who like me also drove bus.
Stories got swapped. Best was Gary's bus crippling right in the middle of an expressway interchange, and the brakes on my 306-bus taking well over a second to keep out of a black Dodge Omni.
I also said something about driving my 300-type bus straight through a 12-foot snow-berm.
300s were articulated (bendable), so backing was impossible.
Colvin is a model railroader.
I had roped him into helping Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”), the retired bus driver with fairly severe Parkinson's Disease.
Art had built an HO model-railroad running track in his basement, and it was giving him problems.
I probably could have helped him myself, but I ain't Colvin.
Colvin had visited Art a few times, and got his layout running sweetly.
“So Art, why doncha call Hughsey, and you can run trains?”
“Nice idea,” Art said; “but with Hughes ya gotta make an appointment.”
“Ain't that the truth!” I crowed to Colvin.
“Just to do this meeting I had to scotch the YMCA, and delay the lawn-mowing.
Plus make sure nothing else conflicted. If I'd had a medical appointment, and I have many, I wouldn't be here.
How many times have I rescheduled appointments to avoid conflicts?”

• “What’s ‘ah-two?’” is something my mother asked seeing my ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) button.
• My wife of 42+ years is “Linda.”
• “Hotel Roanoke” is in Roanoke, VA; a large hotel once affiliated with the Norfolk & Western Railroad, which goes by right out front. It still exists, but is now also an executive conference center.
• “Hughsey” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.

Life with Toto

Photo by BobbaLew.

Toto.

“Toto” is our supposedly fantabulous new lo-flo toilet made by Toto.
It's plugged yet again.
We old folks can still deal with it, but we keep getting older.
Toto replaced one of our three 20-year-old American Standard toilets, which we were told were junk.
Well, one was semi-plugged with salt deposits, but the other two worked fine.
I suppose relative to our old toilets, a lo-flo toilet uses less water per flush.
But that presumes we flushed our old toilets every time, which we didn't.
I find I have to double-flush Toto to get it to compute.
A critique noted, quite rightly, double-flushing a toilet isn't saving water.
Yeah, right!
Nor is filling a bucket to help Toto.
Better yet is our plumber noisily insisting all things wrong with the plumbing in our house are a result of our tankless water-heater.
Such things are reprehensible and of-the-Devil.
He would never install one in a million years.
We go with him because he replaced two leaky sink-traps, which another plumber claimed were fine.
But as far as I know, Toto doesn't use hot water.

• RE: “We old folks......” —We're both 66. (“We” is me and my wife of 42+ years, “Linda.”)
• RE: “A critique noted......” —I also post these blogs to MPNNow, the web-site for the Messenger Newspaper. The critique responded to that. —The “Messenger Newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• A “tankless water-heater” has no water-tank. It heats the water as it flows past a burner. Our plumber's assertion was that such things never flow much water, which ours does.

Mother Sawyer

We hardly watch TV at all.
Our equipment reflects that.
Just a tiny Dynex flat-screen, only about 14 inches diagonal.
Dynex is BestBuy's store brand.
It's driven by cable, Time Warner, via our cable-ready VCR.
Time Warner also supplies our Internet, where our money is.
We spend way more time on our computers, which have displays that make our TV look trashy.
And our Dynex was a step back from our CRT screen.
It looks like mud, lacking sharpness.
The display on this laptop is razor-sharp.
So sharp I might start viewing TV through it.
We don't watch “Extreme Home Mayhem,” to see what insanity that wild-haired dude has come up with this week to destroy the house he's gonna replace.
Or what the decorator guy has come up with.
I remember him decorating a room to look like a huge piano keyboard, and their tearing down the house with a bellowing unmuffled monster-truck.
I have yet to hear of them torching the house, or blasting it with napalm.
Nor have I heard of them nuking the house.
(Cue Enola Gay.)
A friend I once worked with at the mighty Mezz wondered about Extreme Home Mayhem.
“How do the owners pay their tax-bill after Pennington and his lackeys leave?” he asked.
Nor do we watch “Dancing with the Tarts,” with leggy girls who never seem to be able to finish their attire.
We haven't followed the Kate Gosselin train-wreck, except in the tabloids at the supermarket checkout.
We also don't follow “Lost,” wherein despite GPS transponders, the airline passengers are still lost.
And despite their being lost for years, that fat kid has never lost any weight.
We also don't watch “Grey's Anatomy,” which seems to be a nighttime reprise of General Hospital.
After my stroke I was in various hospitals for a long time, and I don't recall intrigues and steamy trysts like on Grey's Anatomy.
What I remember is demanding the nurses take my meal-tray back to replace the 2% with skim, which I had ordered.
It wasn't who's bedding whom.
We also don't watch “Desperate for Ratings,” where if women were anything like that, my marriage wouldn't have lasted 42+ years.
The only TV we watch is the evening news — which we record for playback later.
And that isn't what it was.....
Even good old Charlie Gibson retired, replaced by “Mother Sawyer.”
The other night, Elizabeth Vargas stood in for Mother Sawyer.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “But I can stand this lady better than Mother Sawyer.”
And that's despite “You too can weigh in on this topic at ABCNews-dot-com.”

• “CRT” is cathode-ray-tube, what TVs were before flat-screens.
• “We” is me and my wife of 42+ years, “Linda.”
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

Sandy Hill

A camper who very much wanted to join the stable-staff, rides across the pasture back to the stable entrance. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

During the summers of 1959 through 1961, when I would have been 15 through 17, I was on the staff of a religious boys-camp in northeastern MD.
The camp's name was Sandy Hill. I think it still exists, although no longer owned by those who founded it — i.e. no longer the boys-camp it was when I was there.
I was a C-I-T; Counselor-in-Training.
The campers were shepherded in groups of 10 in cabins by counselors, usually college-students in their early 20s.
As a C-I-T I would substitute counselors on their days off, plus I also lived in a cabin with another counselor.
I had been a camper at that camp since 1954; frightened and shy at first, but I got the hang of it. —The camp was founded in 1949.
I felt the reasons they hired me were: —1) I'd been a camper there six times, and —2) I wrote a fabulous application, very much like this blog.
As a senior in high-school I was told I could sling words together better than most, which is what got me the job.
The camp had a horsemanship program with nags they had rented.
It was the hip program to be in — everyone wanted to be in horsemanship.
My horse-riding ability was questionable, but I could shovel manure.
Which is why they decided I was valuable.
The program included horsemanship instruction; the drill being to put every camper on a horse no matter how scared they were — a parent thing.
Most stable-staff abhorred instruction, but I did fine.
Usually the most horse-riding campers did was around a closed riding ring.
“Chief BobbaLouie, I can barely hold on.”
“Let go of the horn, Johnny; and post,” I'd say.
Sandy Hill was where I picked up the name BobbaLouie; “BobbaLew.”
And all authority-figures there were called “Chief,” including senior staff, counselors, and me.
Senior staff was who ran the camp. They lived in an old mansion-house, the ex-DuPont mansion that Sandy Hill once was.
Sandy Hill overlooked the northern reaches of Chesapeake Bay.
As such it had a canoeing program, with five fabulous Old Town wooden canoes.
I suppose this was what I enjoyed about Sandy Hill most, paddling those canoes out onto Chesapeake Bay.
In 1961 my cabin counselor was the head of canoeing, so we'd swap off; canoe trip for a horse ride.
I remember one twilight watching a gigantic thunderhead roll about 20 miles away, so far you didn't hear thunder. Giant streaks of faraway lightning, but no thunder.
We were in one of those Old Towns, and the bay was like glass.
The bay had a channel in it, and we'd paddle up to a faraway ship-buoy.
Another joy was dodging ships when the bay was stirred up by wind.
Canoeing four-foot waves wasn't easy, but it could be done.
Plus jumping ship wakes. You always had to do them at 90 degrees, lest you capsize.
I enjoyed canoeing more than riding horse, yet got so I could do even that pretty well.
One night we rode horse down to Elk Neck State Park in twilight, a place we used to canoe to for overnight camping trips.
It was pitch-dark when we returned, but our horses knew the trail in.
Sandy Hill is one of the most pleasant memories of my life.
I was set to be a counselor there during college, but my father felt otherwise.
There was no money working for Sandy Hill.

• “Posting” is an up-and-down motion in the saddle to offset the horse trotting. If you hold the horn on a western saddle, it becomes a fulcrum, and you bounce up-and-down.
• The bay was navigable past the camp, so ships could go up to the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.

Weeping Cherry

(Photo by Linda Hughes.)

Our weeping cherry is at full-flower. (See picture above.)
The reason we have one is because of my driving good old 1703 in the late '80s, a bus-trip on the 1700 line to Pittsford via East Ave.
This was during my time driving bus for Regional Transit Service.
It was a really nice ride; I drove it three years.
The clientele was great, mostly working stiffs from Pittsford.
They all got on at Midtown Plaza, and rode all the way to Pittsford.
This is opposed to stopping at every stop to let passengers off one-at-a-time.
I drove it in the afternoon, taking those working stiffs home.
Inbound was the domestic help that cleaned the homes of those rich Pittsford residents.
They got on in Pittsford, and I'd take 'em all downtown.
I also got good equipment. Transit wasn't about to put junk on the 17.
There were only two things wrong:
—1) It was three trips, which is one too many.
—2) It started accessing the two colleges on the line, St. John Fisher and Nazareth.
Nazareth was the biggest problem, but only because people kept parking illegally in the bus-loop.
The bus-loop was a circular driveway with a grass median in the center.
Many times I had to go inside the college to get people to move their illegally parked cars.
I'd harass the receptionist: “I'm blocked again. I can't loop without driving on the grass.”
An all-call was broadcast, and the miscreants would appear angrily badmouthing my driving ability.
“Ya know, I ain't drivin' a snake,” I'd say.
“That thing is 40 feet long; its wheelbase is 33 feet.
It ain't a trolley-car. Only the front wheels steer.
If I don't pay attention to where the rear wheels go, they climb a curb or take out a pole.
Or in this case, go all over the grass to get around illegally parked cars.
In which case the college blows me in for driving my bus on their precious lawn.
I can't avoid the grass unless you move your illegally parked car.
That's why parking here is illegal, so we can avoid the grass.
There already are ruts there.
They were probably put there by buses trying to get around an illegally parked car.
Ever notice how a semi crabs across a corner? It's trailer wheels don't steer.
They crab well inside the steering wheels of the truck.
My bus is like that. It's rear wheels don't steer, and can crab onto the grass.
Its rear wheels are 33 feet behind the steering wheels.”
Scenery out in Pittsford was fabulous.
Especially south of St. John Fisher.
East Ave. in Rochester was nice too, but it was nicer in Pittsford.
I'd pass a house out there that had a weeping cherry out front.
It was a harbinger of Spring.
Every Spring it would begin to flower, and become gorgeous.
When we moved to West Bloomfield I said we have to get a weeping cherry.

• “Linda Hughes” is my wife of 42+ years. “We” is my wife and I.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (“Transit”), the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.
• “Pittsford” is a ritzy suburb southeast of Rochester.
• St. John Fisher College and Nazareth College.

Green comes to the Mighty Curve

The greenery at the Mighty Curve is leafing out.
The long-abandoned coke ovens along Glenwhite Road will disappear into the foliage.
Above is a screenshot from the Curve web-cam, which was great for a while, but has been eclipsed.
Below is a screenshot from another web-cam, the fabulous Roanoke RailCam, which is better than the Curve Web-cam.



The Mighty Curve (Horseshoe Curve) is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to.
I'm a railfan, and have been since age two — I'm 66.
The viewing area is smack in the Curve apex.
You're up-close-and-personal with every passing train, and there are a lot.
Horseshoe Curve was a long-ago trick by the Pennsylvania Railroad to conquer the Allegheny Mountains without steep grades.
The tracks are looped back around a valley; to avoid climbing the mountain steeply.
The grade is only 1.8 percent — 1.8 feet up for every 100 feet forward. Enough to require helpers, but not too bad.
Go over 2.5 percent and it becomes almost impossible.
Out in California the grades approach 2.5 percent, and often exceed that.
Most railroad construction is 19th century, before modern-day grading equipment.
Horseshoe Curve was built in 1854, and is still in use; although no longer Pennsylvania Railroad.
Building it was an immense challenge. A mountain face had to be blasted off, and two giant fills constructed.
It was done with pick-and-shovel, and dynamite by then.
Pennsy tanked, so now the Curve is Norfolk Southern, a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.
Pennsy stumbled after WWII, and finally had to merge with arch-rival New York Central in 1968.
When I first visited the Curve in 1969 it was Penn-Central.
Penn-Central soon tanked, and became part of Conrail, at first a government-sponsored amalgamation of all the bankrupt eastern railroads.
There were many beside Penn-Central; e.g. Erie-Lackawanna, Lehigh Valley, and Jersey Central.
For years the Curve was Conrail.
Eventually Conrail was privatized, then broken up and sold. CSX Transportation (railroad) got most of the ex-New York Central lines, and competitor Norfolk Southern the ex-Pennsy lines.
Therefore CSX is across New York state, and Norfolk Southern across Pennsylvania.
Norfolk Southern also operates the old Norfolk & Western line through downtown Roanoke, VA.
The Roanoke RailCam views that.
At first it was from Hotel Roanoke, but now it appears to be from an enclosed walkway over the tracks and parallel streets.
Hotel Roanoke was affiliated with Norfolk & Western. Roanoke was also the location of the railroad's shops, which also built steam-locomotives of N&W design.
A railfan friend clued me in to the Roanoke RailCam, and it's much better than the Curve web-cam.
The Curve web-cam is okay, but rewrites about every half-second or so.
Roanoke RailCam is much faster, maybe 1/16th of a second.
Like a movie, or actual TV.
With the Curve web-cam a train can advance 10-15 feet or so between rewrites. If a train is doing 30 mph, the speedlimit, trains are blurred.
Roanoke RailCam is much better.
Cars drive down the street, and look just like a movie.
If a train passes, it's not blurred.
Just the same, the mountainsides at the Mighty Curve are no longer grayish-brown.
They're turning green.
Soon the Curve will open — it's a National Historic Site.
And I will visit again, as I have hundreds of times.

Reflections on the income tax wars

Both income taxes are done, state and Fed.
Both are mailed as of tax-day, April 15, 2010.
That's because both were a little short; the Fed a small amount, and the state a tiny amount.
The ain't gettin' nuthin until it's due.
I do the taxes myself — I hear I'm one of the few that do.
It's not too hard; maybe six hours total.
I've tried various angles — worksheets — along the way, and usually we don't qualify.
The only angle that worked was reducing the taxable amount of our Social Security income.
I don't use TurboTax®, which I call TubbieTax.
It requires more than I need, and what I do is aimed at what I need.
I have two separate computer spreadsheets that total -a) income, and -b) itemized deductions.
The first totals our income from Social Security and pensions; the second our itemized deduction amounts.
The first should equal our 1099s, and second are entries on each line of federal Schedule A.
Doing the income tax is fairly simple, although I usually try various angles.
That's what eats up time.
Just the same, income tax was done later this year.
The Fed was done a week ago, and the state finished on tax-day. —Actually the state was done the night before, but finished on tax-day.
Now that we're retired, we find ourselves swamped with errands and medical appointments, etc.
We wonder at times how we managed when we worked.
Finding time to do the income tax was a struggle.
Working out at the YMCA was scotched, and lawn-mowing put on hold.
Walking our dog became almost impossible.
A medical appointment also had to be done.
That chewed up at least four hours.
Both the state and the Fed have advanced to fillable PDFs.
That was a couple years ago, but at first your completed tax-form wasn't savable.
All that was savable was the unfilled PDF.
My workaround was to not turn off my computer — keep the filled-in file open.
If I needed to edit, I only wanted to edit that one item, not fill in the whole form again.
My wife helps me.
She fills in the PDFs from my penciled trials.
“Progress,” I said. “They've made the PDFs savable.”
But not everything.
Not the summarization of 1099s for the state.
Everything else was savable, but I had to keep the 1099 summarization open — form IT-1099-R.
“I've noted they've made other tiny advancements,” my wife observed.
“Your Social Security numbers carry over on each page of IT-201, plus the amount of your tax also carries over.
So why can't they make the forms do simple calculations — like addition and subtraction? And thereby avoid errors..... Why do you hafta use a calculator?”
Yeah, right! My spreadsheets are totaling each column; a simple function.
Probably somebody suggested that, and were shut down by some bureaucrat.
Heaven forbid income tax advance into the new century.
A couple weeks ago a financial advisor set about consolidating all my separate retirement accounts into a single account.
He used my wife's spreadsheet.

• “We” is me and my wife of 42+ years ,“Linda.”
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s almost five, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up.)
• “PDF” is Portable-Document-Format, essentially a computer-file that can't be changed. —Except fillable PDFs, onto which stuff can be entered.
• “1099” is a statement of pension income. The forms, and W-2s, are not actually attached to our state income tax. They are summarized on a form — i.e. the taxpayer does it instead of the income tax people. That way the state tax department can reduce staff.

Into the belly of the beast

The other day (Tuesday, April 13, 2010) my wife had to have a minor medical procedure at Strong Hospital.
The appointment was at 10 a.m.
Into the belly of the beast.
We set out at 9 a.m., since -a) it takes about a half-hour to 45 minutes to get there, and -b) we had to stop at a grocery-store in Honeoye Falls to purchase cough-drops.
We arrived at Strong Radiology at 9:52.
“Please take a seat, and someone will come to get you.”
We had been told the procedure would take two hours, so I would wait, fortified with my own magazines.
My wife disappeared into the mysterious bowels of Radiology.
Hours passed — we were now on hospital time.
There was delay, of course, so her procedure didn't start until after noon.
Meanwhile, two phonecalls came to my cellphone — this never happens.
But none from my wife.
She had her cellphone, but not where she could get it.
If I had known it was gonna be this long, I coulda driven back home and walked our poor dog, who hates to be abandoned in the house.
By now I was paging through my magazines looking for articles of little interest, stuff I usually bypass.
Finally my wife called; it was pushing 2 p.m.
She had retrieved her cellphone herself. —Risking death and destruction from the staff.
I decided to come back to the Nurse's Station to “shake things up.”
I ambled back, and “Is someone helping you?” a nurse asked.
“Don't know if I should, but I'm looking for my wife,” I said, in the garbled speech of a stroke-survivor.
“Her name please?”
“Linda Hughes.”
“Back in 'I.'”
There in “I” was my wife. She still had an intravenous in her hand.
It was for conscious anesthesia.
“No one seems to know I'm here,” she said.
It's no wonder healthcare costs as much as it does; the place was crawling with staff.
“The doctor will see you in a minute,” the nurse said. “Let's get that intravenous out.”
”Worked the first try,” my wife said.
“Well, that's better than six pokes,” I said.
“I try to avoid multiple pokes,” the nurse said.
The harried Doctor appeared. “No strenuous activity,” he said.
“Does that include walking our dog?” I asked.
“She's a puller,” my wife said; “and can throw you to the ground.
Walking our dog was poo-pooed.
Released, we all shook hands and strode out.
Up to the parking-garage, second floor, all elevators, no stairs.
Out into the sunlight; onto South Ave.
It's marked as only one lane wide, narrow, but wide enough to pass two cars per side.
A black BMW was ahead of us, off to the right, left-turn signal on, aimed at a side-street to the left.
The old bus-driving jones kicked in; expect anything!
A car ahead of us pulled around the BMW to the left.
The angry BMW driver stuck his arm out to stop anyone else from passing.
“I'm driving a BMW; I'm entitled!”
The terrified driver behind him stopped.
Arm still out, Mr. BMW arrowed across the road and made his left-turn in front of all-and-sundry.
Too bad I wasn't still driving bus.
I mighta disregarded his arm.
One thing I learned driving bus, the four-wheelers generally don't argue with you.
Elitism doesn't work against nine tons of hurtling steel.

• “Strong Hospital” is a large hospital on the south side of Rochester, affiliated with UofR Medical Center (University of Rochester).
• “Honeoye (‘HONE-eee-oy;' rhymes with 'boy') Falls” is the nearest village to the west to where we live in western New York, a rural village about five miles away. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty putting words together.)
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s almost five, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up.)
• “South Ave.” is a main street from downtown south out of Rochester. It's a block or two from the hospital.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke ended that.

Jeeze Louise!

“Oh dear,” Congresswoman Louise Slaughter said. ”Can't we at least just build the thing first?” referring to FastRail across NY state.
Score one for Louise. They're getting the hang of it.
A good response for the noisy blowhard-radio crowd.
“No!” my wife shouted. “Why should we build something just for the sake of building it, after the Fast Ferry debacle?”
“Who's gonna ride it?” someone asked.
“Oh, lotsa people,” Louise bubbled. “College kids.”
College kids are a viable market?
“Most college kids have cars,” my wife declared.
Like the brand new Nissan Maxima my brother gave his daughter for graduating high-school.
College kids choose FastRail instead of taking their car back to college?
Jeeze Louise!
“All we hafta do is put in a third track,” Louise said.
In which case you have three tracks through every podunk burg across NY.
You'll hafta slow for them burgs.
Sorry Louise, but the old New York Central Water-Level Route (now CSX) is 19th century.
As is the Northeast Corridor, which despite that has a viable market.
Fast as it is, the Northeast Corridor is poor as FastRail.
Too many junctions, and ancient restrictive tunnels.
Sections have to be negotiated at 40 mph.
The tunnels under the Hudson River won't clear double-deck passenger cars. They won't even clear freight cars.
It ain't like FastRail in Europe.
I also find it ironic that every PR depiction of FastRail is the Northeast Corridor, which excuse me, is electrified with overhead trolley wire.
It isn't diesel locomotives.
The railroad across New York is. It isn't electrified.
130 mph out of a FastRail diesel train is a lot of diesel locomotives.
They have to generate their own power.
It's not an electrified line, where mega-power is in the overhead wire.
Sadly, I don't think the media understands the main advantage of railroads, which is to move great quantities of freight at little cost.
They think railroading is moving passengers, which it was for a time, but secondary to moving freight.
And a passenger railroad doesn't deliver you portal-to-portal like a car.
Hello; a taxi is a car, and rather expensive.
Years ago we rode the bus home after hiking over to Main & Clinton from Amtrak's Rochester station.
But as a Transit employee, I could ride the bus free.
I had ridden Amtrak only because I'm a railfan.
Most times I prefer my car, or fly.
Louise's FastRail isn't gonna benefit me anything, not enough to make me switch.
The only ones who benefit will be legislators in Albany, plus those who build it.
—Same as those who built the Fast Ferry in Australia. Paid for by us taxpayers.
L.A. to Las Vegas is a viable market. Maybe even Chicago to Milwaukee. But Buffalo to Albany? Who's gonna ride it? The Fast Ferry made even more sense.
The CEO of Regional Transit was crestfallen his beloved Transit Center in downtown Rochester crashed with Renaissance Square.
His angle was government funding of the project.
“Government funding” equals you-and-me; or our children's children.

• Louise Slaughter is the US Representative for New York's 28th Congressional District.
• The “Fast Ferry” was a recent service that was instituted between Rochester and Toronto across Lake Ontario that went defunct for little use. Its single boat was a large high-speed catamaran. The idea was to avoid the long trip around the lake, but customs were never made easy. —The boat was eventually sold.
• New York Central Railroad, across New York State, called their railroad the “Water-Level Route,” because it followed rivers, and crossed no mountains. It was built in the 1800s, before modern-day construction equipment. It was therefore easier to operate. —It long ago was four tracks, but was reduced to two a while ago. The right-of-way is still four tracks wide, so adding a third track would be easy and cheap.
• The “Northeast Corridor” is the old Pennsylvania Railroad electrified line from New York City to Washington DC, now owned and operated by Amtrak. It's been extended to Boston.
• “Amtrak” is a government corporation promulgated in 1970 to take over rail passenger service. It mainly runs passenger trains over the independent railroads with its own equipment, but it also owns and operates its own railroads; e.g. the old Pennsy electrified line from New York City to Washington D.C., the so-called “Northeast Corridor;” although the Corridor has been extended to Boston over the old New York, New Haven & Hartford line, which was fully electrified. (Previously it was only electrified to New Haven.)
• RE: “Double-deck passenger cars........” —Amtrak uses passenger-cars with two seating decks, one atop the other, where they will clear, which is most of their lines, but not the Hudson tunnels.
• “Main & Clinton” is the main intersection in downtown Rochester, where buses line up at night for transfer. —We probably got the lineup around 10:15 p.m.
• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service in Rochester, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).
• I've been a railfan since age two; I'm 66.

Grass always grows highest over the septic tank

Photo by BobbaLew.

So begins the mowing season.
A six-month chase to stay ahead of our prolific lawn.
I had to mow the front-part Sunday, April 11, 2010; our first mowing.
Our grass was growing, especially over our septic, where grass always grows first.
Proving yet again Erma Bombeck's assertion that grass always grows highest over the septic tank.
We're mowing about two acres, divided into four segments; our front yard, the north and south wings, and our back yard, otherwise known as the “Back 40.”
Last year I was having to mow this all every week. Although I could usually do two segments at a time.
The Back 40 is the largest, probably almost two hours.
We weren't mowing it at first, just a tiny fenced part for our dog(s). But I found I could mow it.
We have a number of tools to do this, primarily our Husqvarna (“husk-VAR-nuh;” a “Husky”) zero-turn mower pictured above.
It's 18 horsepower, 48-inch cut; a residential zero-turn, as opposed to a commercial.
A zero-turn has two separate drives to each rear tire, which means you can turn it on a dime.
It cuts the time mowing lawn compared to a lawn-tractor in half, primarily because you can spin it after each mowing pass, instead of setting up for the next pass.
It also lets you trim tightly around shrubs without backing.
We also have two small walk-behind power mowers; a Honda, a mulcher, and the second a very light mower inherited from our neighbor when he died.
My wife still mows the fenced back yard with a walk-behind, but the mulcher is heavy, and the lighter mower likes to throw things.
I have mowed it with the zero-turn, but it's abusive.
We also have a 38-inch John Deere riding-mower we bought 15 years ago, but it's semi-retired. I used to mow with that; it still runs fine, so may get sold.
I use it as a brush-hog for paths — plus my wife is intimidated by that zero-turn.
Our Husky is doomed.
It will get traded for a Country Clipper zero-turn from Leif's, where I bought the Husky four years ago.
The Husky was probably assembled by a Friday crew. It has driven us nuts.
Leif's too. They've had to perform a mountain of warranty work on it.
Various things tanked on it, but all I can remember is the drive-pulley coming loose on the right-side drive-unit, chewing things up, and Leif's having to replace the entire drive-unit.
This was at least three years out from purchase, but Leif's replaced it no charge.
Last summer it decided to no longer charge the battery.
The engine has magneto ignition, so it will run independent of the battery, but the cutting drive is electric clutch, which draws down the battery, and the charging system, if it worked.
All the battery was for was starting the engine, electric-start.
Mow the Back 40 with it and that electric clutch would slowly draw down the battery so if it stalled, it wouldn't crank.
So the plan was to have Leif's fix the charging system, but my wife suggested maybe we should trade.
The Country Clipper is a tank; my Husky compared to it is junk.
I was impressed with the Husky, but more because it was a zero-turn.
Us old folks keeping up with that lawn was doable with a zero-turn.
Nevertheless, my wife suggested perhaps we should farm out the lawn-mowing.
Well, it is a monster, but I like mowing lawn with that zero-turn.
It's fun.

• “We” is me and my wife of 42+ years, “Linda.”
• “Leif's” is “Leif's Sales & Service,” a small-engine repair and sales outlet about two miles from our house. They also sell Lionel model-train equipment.
• “Magneto ignition” generates the spark without battery input.
• “Electric clutch” is the same as the clutch that engages automotive air-conditioning. Energized, an input plate become a magnet, and thereby engages the output plate. (Or the output plate is magnetized, and engages the input plate. —Sometimes both plates are magnetized.)
• RE: “Us old folks......” —We're both 66.

DONE

Our Federal income-tax is DONE, I guess.
It's entered on PDFs for proofing.
I do it myself.
My feeling is I shouldn't hafta pay a preparer.
I do it with the help of this here computer.
But not TurboTax® or its equivalent.
Our taxes are essentially on our income minus our itemized deductions, so I keep track of both on two computer spreadsheets I made.
I keep track of this stuff throughout the year.
So essentially my spreadsheet totals are entered on our tax-forms.
It's much easier — and faster — than tracking everything for TurboTax.
TurboTax seems to want individual amounts for each charity.
Why bother when Schedule A wants only the total charity figure?
I suppose this is because some charitable donations qualify, and some don't.
All ours qualify, so my computer spreadsheet just adds 'em all up.
I just plug my spreadsheet totals into our Schedule A.
Our amount withheld is another manifestation of math trickery.
Our amount withheld is per month: deductions from our Social Security and my wife's pension.
My disability pension from Regional Transit is so small I don't deduct from it.
What I do is divide my previous year's taxes by 12, and make our monthly deductions equal that.
I used to do this when we both worked.
We had to add an additional deduction to the exemption amount, so I'd multiply the exempted amount times 26 to see how short we were. (We were getting paid biweekly.)
I'd then divide that shortage by 26, and that was our additional deduction per paycheck.
Since income is now monthly instead of biweekly, I now use 12.
This works pretty good.
We owe the Feds a small amount.
Better this than them owing me 89 bazilyun dollars for money they never paid me interest on.
People think a tax-refund is a windfall.
Not in my humble opinion — not when they don't pay me interest on it.
Better I should owe a small amount then them make like bandits.
Every excess of funds I have pays interest; why shouldn't they?
—Now for the State; a process made difficult because of their refusal to send me a tax-booklet.
I hafta online their tax-chart.
What about Granny without a computer?
And then there's their making me summarize all my income.....
No W-2s or 1099s attached to my NY income-tax.
They don't pay me for that!
Slough it all off on the taxpayer — or his preparer.
A while ago, when I worked at the mighty Mezz, their W-2 didn't give all the information needed for the state's IT-2.
I just wrote “not available” on it.
With fear the NY State Police would be monitoring my house from antenna-festooned Econolines.
The state could just deal with it.
They want information that isn't there, I'm gonna write “not available.”
So the Feds get paper; not E-File yet.
Something about “Free-File” was mentioned.
Something about cranking numbers into computer forms, and filing that electronically.
I'll look into it, but not this late.
Maybe next year, Free-File.
Would that the State would do that — maybe it has, but everything seems to be secret.
As far as I can see, the current regime for electronic filing of my state income-tax is some variation of TurboTax, and I get to fork over a fee.
No thank you!
If I can Free-File the Feds, I should be able to Free-File the State.
Why should I pay someone to pay my taxes?
Actually, the Fed went pretty well.
About two hours so far; and no quixotic hairballs of note.
The only hairball so far is PDF page-numbers not corresponding to form page-numbers.
So that printing page 11 was actually page 10 of the forms.
I had to print page 12 to get page 11.
And at long last they made the filled-in PDFs savable.
Mind-boggling progress.

• My wife of 42+ years is “Linda.”
• RE: “Disability pension from Regional Transit.......” —I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and retired on disability from Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). RTS is the supplier of transit-bus service in the greater Rochester area and surrounding environs. It's publicly funded.
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• Ford “Econoline” van.
• “E-File” is electronic tax filing, over the Internet.
• RE: “They made the filled-in PDFs savable......” —Previously a filled-in PDF could not be saved; it just saved the PDF, not your fillins. Now filled-in PDFs can be saved. (“Save-As......”)

Consummated

As of Thursday, April 8, 2010, the giant money-transfer is at long last consummated.
When I disability retired from Regional Transit after my stroke in late 1993, I departed with a fairly substantial deferred income account.
I hadn't been contributing the maximum to it, but had been doing so for years.
When I retired from the mighty Mezz a little over four years ago, I had been doing the same — a deferred income account, but contributing the maximum.
A third money-pot was an IRA I had started while at Transit, a money-market fund that kept growing.
We had contributed equal amounts amounts to two different funds, both recommended by a fellow bus-driver into financial stuff.
But mine kept outpacing my wife's, until the recent economic downturn, when it tanked.
About 6-7 months ago a guy pulled in our driveway as I was finishing up the lawn.
He introduced himself.
He had just started a financial service in nearby Honeoye Falls (“HONE-eee-oy”).
He was fishing for clients.
Uh-ho...... Try to be diplomatic.
Thank goodness my wallet is in the house.
“Well, I'd like to consolidate,” I said.
“I have three separate money-pots I'd like to consolidate into one.”
“We can do that,” he said.
Followup ensued.
But there was a large load.
We backed off.
My wife had consolidated all her money-pots at little expense into one online account.
He much later proposed a fee-based consulting service, that avoided the load.
We still put him off.
We were trying to survey all our options, but months were passing with no research.
Finally, “Gotta get off the dime,” I said.
I called him and proposed a meeting.
We set up a fee-based account that consolidates all my money-pots.
“You're getting the business because we never have time for research,” I said.
“Now to transfer all your funds,” he said. “I'll call them up.”
“Welcome to ?????????. For your safety this call will be recorded.”
We had it on speaker-phone.
“I need to verify your identity,” the representative said.
I yelled at the speaker-phone. “My mother's maiden name was ?????????.”
“Now for your deferred income account from Transit,” he said. “This may be our biggest problem.”
“Please take your phone off speaker-phone,” the officious representative said.
The phone was handed to me.
Identity verified, “Yada-yada-yada-yada-yada........”
“Can you please say all that again but a little slower so I can follow it? I'm a stroke-survivor,” I asked.
My doing this is always a bit unreal, because of the lack of all my gray matter.
But I don't worry about it. We're not hurting for money, and can survive on our Social Security and pensions.
We haven't had to dip into those accounts yet, and don't expect to.
“Behind all this is my consideration that I ain't dead yet,” I said.
“I expect to last a while; but those accounts will probably outlast us.”

• “Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• “Honeoye Falls” is the nearest village to the west to where we live in western New York, a rural village about five miles away.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993. If something is said too quickly, my mind locks up.

Bach's Birthday

March 21 came and went a few weeks ago.
March 21 was a Sunday.
It was also the 325th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Bach is the classical music I like most.
Order out of chaos.
I happened to attend nearby Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “who” or “wow”). When I was there, middle '60s, the college was very much into Bach.
Every four years, the college would hold a Bach Festival, so that every class got exposed to at least one Bach Festival.
College singing groups would give Bach performances; e.g. the College Choir and an oratorio society.
Students and faculty would give concerts on the college's fabulous pipe-organ, an instrument I came to love.
So much so, I told the powers-that-be at that college if they let that pipe-organ fall into disrepair, they weren't getting another red cent.
During my senior year, 1966, the college held its quadrennial Bach Festival.
For some reason I was called upon to render a poster for it.
I rendered the standard Bach illustration, pictured above, but with Bach winking.
The college went ballistic.
Sacrilege!
Bach was among the Holy-of-Holies.
No matter I thought the world of Bach.
My rendering was disrespectful.
Despite my supposed indiscretion, I still have a vast collection of Bach recordings.
I still play “Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring” on the piano; which I seque into “Louis-LewEye.”
And every March 21, I take notice.

• “Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton was an evangelical liberal-arts college. —Still is, but not as strict as when I was there.

(This is the greatest rock 'n' roll song ever made.)

Harbinger of Spring

Harbinger of Spring. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

As a child growing up in a sleepy suburb of Philadelphia in south Jersey, in the late '40s and early '50s, my parents had two forsythia bushes in our backyard.
Every Spring those two bushes would burst into a glorious cascade of yellow, signifying the onset of the season.
It got so I looked for it; the flowering of those two forsythia bushes heralding the coming of Spring.
Much later there were other indicators.
Driving bus was Ellison Park on Browncroft Boulevard; the budding out of the trees. —Down the hill and then back up.
This usually happened in May.
No longer were the trees grayish brown.
They became all green.
When we moved to West Bloomfield, I decided to plant forsythia bushes partially in memory of my parents.
One got backed over by a construction truck, and is still our worst one.
The others are pretty hearty, despite not much tending.
The biggest mistake is not much pruning.
All our forsythias are bursting with yellow.
Heralding Spring yet again, 60 years on......

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.
• “Ellison Park” is a large county park east of Rochester. “Browncroft Boulevard” skirted the north edge of it. Ellison Park was down in a defile, what used to be a river-bed. Browncroft Blvd. went down into this defile, and then back up out the other side.
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester. We used to live in Rochester, not far from Ellison Park.

100 miles per hour

During the past week, a friend I graduated college with in the middle '60s, regaled me with tales of doing 100 miles per hour in another friend's '55 Ford convertible.
The college was nearby Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”), which I've never regretted attending.
The car may have been a '56. My memory of it is fibrous, since what I remember is a black two-door sedan. —The '55 and '56 are similar.
Whatever; it was a 292 cubic-inch V8 engine, the Y-Block introduced by Ford in the 1954 model-year.
“Y-Block” because the iron block-casting extended down alongside the crankshaft bearings, making it look like a “Y.”
It had a three-speed standard transmission with Overdrive, rendering in effect six speeds.
My friend mentioned the car still had a little acceleration left after it hit 100.
Whether it actually hit a hundred is questionable, although it probably did.
It probably topped out at 110 on the speedometer, but speedometers were notoriously optimistic at that time.
The car's owner was also a student at the college.
The fastest I've ever done is 120; 120 on the speedometer.
—Once was while a student at that college, driving a friend's 1964 Plymouth with 383 four-speed.
He had got it to replace his 300G Chrysler; 413 with a TorqueFlite and ram manifolds.
Two four-barrel carburetors way out to the sides.
He drove it like a maniac.
Missed a turn once, and drove it into a long-abandoned dry canal bed; “the ditch,” he called it.
He wanted me to come pull it out with my tiny Triumph TR3 sportscar.
“Ya got it in the old Genesee Valley Canal,” I told him.
He ended up trying to back it out himself, and tore off the entire exhaust system.
A tow-truck pulled it out.
Here's my friend returning to Houghton at 120-130 mph with open exhausts. Sounded like the Daytona 500. Woke up cows in surrounding pastures.
He invited me to test-drive his '64 Plymouth, so I floored it south out of town.
Up through the gears we went, and in no time I was doing 120 mph on the clock.
WHOA! I backed off. I didn't realize I was going that fast.
—The second time was on my 1984 Yamaha RZ350 two-stroke motorcycle.
My brother from northern Delaware and I had towed our motorcycles to my baby sister's in Lynchburg, VA.
We set out for the Blue Ridge Mountains.
My brother roared off, and I had to do 120 mph to catch up.
A retired bus-driver from Regional Transit Service has a gorgeous 1949 Ford hot-rod, pearlescent white with with red flames.
“This thing is probably capable of 100 miles per hour,” I said; “but I don't know as I'd want to try it.”
I've never driven it, and as a 1949 it lacks the safety features you see on cars nowadays, like seat-belts and shoulder harnesses.
A while ago I attended a car-show where the owner of a '33 Ford V8 sedan detailed all the safety features it lacked; like a collapsible steering column, padded dash, etc.
He then claimed he felt safer at 75 in his '33 Ford than in current safety cars.
Not this kid!
That steering column would be waiting to impale my chest if I made a mistake.
Recently I viewed an Insurance-Institute video of a head-on crash between a '59 Chevy and a 2009 Malibu.

The '59 Chevy was destroyed, and its driver probably would have been killed. The driver's compartment was reduced to a shambles.
The Malibu was also destroyed, but its driver would have likely survived, slightly injured.
The driver's compartment was intact.

• “383” and “413” are cubic-inch engine displacements.
• “Four-speed” is a four-speed standard transmission, shifted by a floor-lever poking out of the center floor rise.
• A 300G is 1961.
• “TorqueFlite” was Chrysler's automatic transmission at that time. It had three speeds.
• “Ram manifolds” are long intake-runners out over the rocker-covers, clear to over the fender-wells. Runners that long supercharged the intake-charges to the cylinders — due to tuning of the moving intake-air columns. Ram-manifolds worked best at 4,000 rpm and up. By making the intake manifolds shorter, intake tuning occurred at a lower engine speed.
• The “Genesee River” is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario. —Shortly after the Erie Canal was built, a similar canal was built down the Genesee Valley. The Genesee Valley was the nation's first bread-basket. Wheat-milling was done in Rochester; first known as the “Flour City.”
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY.

Gotcha!

East side; chain-tensioner pin visible. (Photo by Linda Hughes.)

Yesterday afternoon (Friday, April 2, 2010) I was taking a nap.
My wife strode in.
“I don't know what's with that garage-door,” she said; “but it closes about a foot, and then opens right back up again.”
I got up. It had made a gigantic noise that morning, but closed.
It's a power operated garage-door.
I tried it.
Closed about a foot, BANG; and then opened right back up again.
“It's hitting something,” I said.
Our automatic garage-door opener has two safety features engineered into it.
-1) is a light-beam across the bottom of the opening. If a kitty-cat or a small child breaks the beam, the closer reverses.
-2) if the door hits something that hadn't already broken the light-beam, like a car, it also reverses.
Something was triggering response number-two.
But what? What was it hitting? What was hanging it up?
Get out stepladder.
Release pull-chain thingy from garage-door.
Close door manually.
No problem. It's not hitting anything.
Actuate power opener/closer.
It completes its entire cycle without drama, but the door isn't attached.
Our garage-door is HUGE. Eight by 18 feet.
When our house was being built 20 years ago, the contractor suggested two garage doors, each eight feet square.
“No!” I shouted.
“I specified that door for two reasons:
-A) I wanna only hafta shovel one side if that door gets drifted in, after which I wiggle both cars out of that shoveled side.”
The following winter, this happened.
-B) An eight-foot wide door wouldn't clear my Ford E250 van, which is around nine feet wide over the outside mirrors.
And that opening is eight feet high to clear that van.
The first thing I did when I designed the house was measure that van.
My garage was designed to swallow it.
No more oil-changes in the snow.
Attach door to pull-chain, and it hangs; BANG!
I climbed up next to the power operator; it sounded like the bang was coming from that.
“Okay, try it now,” I said.
BANG! The pull-chain was flopping all over the place.
I felt around. There was a tiny pad the pull-chain was supposed to be riding on, but it wasn't.
“I have a hunch this pull-chain is supposed to be riding on that pad. Since it ain't, that pull-chain can laterally hang up on something.
I have a hunch this pull-chain has stretched; it no longer has enough tension.”
What to do......
“There's a chain-tensioner on the other side. What if I tighten that?”
I got out a half-inch open-end wrench, and tightened the chain-tensioner.
“Okay, try it now,” I said.
Hello; the pull-chain is now riding that tiny pad, no longer flopping all over.
The garage-door closed fully; no bang.
“Okay, that's all I'm doing. The door works. I don't wanna over-tension it.”
Back to base, RolyDoor.
Do not collect $200 for service-call.

• “Linda Hughes” is my wife of 42+ years.
• Our house was designed by us, but built by a contractor. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester, NY. —We originally lived in Rochester.)
• “Outside rear-view mirrors” on the doors of the van. They were large, for towing a trailer.
• Our current garage-door (#2) was sold to us and installed by “RolyDoor” in Rochester, NY.