Sunday, January 29, 2006

Twenty Years



On January 21, it had been twenty years since my mother died suddenly of a massive heart attack. It was around noon, at my parent's condo in North Seattle. Mom said she wasn't feeling well and told Dad she was going to take a quick nap. Fifteen minutes later she was dead.

I was having lunch at the time, with a very dear co-worker, at a fancy restaurant on Lake Union. We returned to the office, where my siblings had been frantically trying to get ahold of me. The company's owner, an affable man with penetrating green eyes, put his hand on my shoulders and said I should call my Dad right away. I knew it wasn't good, but had no idea it was going to be that bad.

The rest is history, as they say. In late January, my brothers and sisters and I (usually along with spouses) try to make a pilgrimage out to the Vashon Island Cemetery, where Mom's buried. We always buy some primroses (her favorite flower) at the local Thriftway: four--one for each of the kids.

We went out there today, braving the cold and rain, which are the usual weather conditions. For the first time in quite a while, none of the "grandkids" could make it. We bought the flowers, hung around the cemetery for a few minutes as the rain pounded down and headed off for lunch at a new restaurant in downtown Vashon, located in the local hardware store's old building, where we had been many times with our Mom and Dad, a long time ago.

It was a good day--we all still miss her.

A Mean Incident

A lot of us in the Ballard area work out on a steep hill and steps just east of the Golden Gardens dogpark (see earlier posting), sort of where NW 85th comes to its western terminus. It's a very pleasant place to run, amongst the tall cedars and the other old growth trees so common to that little park. It has quite a network of trails and steep steps and it's often made pleasanter by an older gentleman (I don't even know his name) who maintains the trail, on his own time, with his own tattered rake. He's rather famous amongst the locals for handing out red and white hard candy to everyone that passes by.

This morning, at a little before 10, a very mean thing happened. I had passed the old man several times as I had been running up and down the trail. It was a busy day, with lots of other runners and dog walkers and strollers on the trail. As I was running up some of the steeper steps I heard a commotion coming from the lower landing. One of the men who had been running the steps was telling the older guy, who was now taking a little break, to pick up a candy wrapper that was on the ground. "You're polluting the earth!" he yelled, immediately getting the attention of everyone within earshot. The old man, who has to be at least 80 and is hard of hearing, didn't quite understand. He offered the guy some candy from his bag. The villain hit the old man's hand, causing the candy to fall to the ground, repeating loudly his declaration, at which point I rushed to the man's aid, along with half a dozen other runners who were also on the steps.

We tried to explain to the guy what was going on, that it wasn't cool to hassle the old man and that a single wrapper on the ground wasn't exactly a big deal, even if the old guy did accidentally drop it. Well, the younger guy just went off and started yelling again about polluting the earth and then came a stream of rather poorly articulated profanities, all revolving around pollution and aimed directly at me and the others who were close to bringing him down at this point.

But he was smart enough to continue up the steps, an action we heartily encouraged. We also recommended that he never, ever come back. He went into a jog down 32nd Ave NW as a couple of the attending women, whom he had verbally assaulted, threatened to call 911 from their cellphones. We tried to re-assure our shaken old friend that we had never seen the offender before and didn't think we would again, but we're still left wonder if things will ever be the same, at least for him.

For those of you in the neighborhood, you might want to keep your eyes open for this dude--he seems rather deranged. He's about 5'9" tall, maybe mid-30s, medium weight and build. He has dark hair and, I think, a moustache. On this day, at least, he was in high-style, wearing shorts and a pair of nearly knee-high socks, with Spalding athletic shoes. What a jerk!

On Bundling


I caught a few minutes of Mel Gibson's "The Patriot" the other night. I heard mention made of a "bundling bag," but hadn't been watching enough of the movie to understand the context of the expression. I could see, however, that a young couple was on screen and that one of them did appear to be in the process of being sewn into some kind of linen bag--I think it ws the guy, but I'm not sure.

For some perverse reason, I became fascinated with the whole concept of being sewn into a bag in order to avoid intimate contact with the person with whom you were sharing a bed. Hence, I did some research.

It seems that "bundling" has quite a history, going back even before Microsoft's lawyers re-invented the expession a few years ago, much to Netscape's detriment. Evidently, in America's colonial period, young men and women would "bundle" as a form of courtship. Even in that puritanical era, if would often be a way to offer young couples some quality time at the end of the day, especially if the man had to travel a considerable distance to call on his love. Beds were at a premium back then and often had to be shared with travelers. And when you were trying to save heat and beds, it seemed that if the sparking couple was going to have any face time at all, it would have to be in the bedroom (or at least the room where the bed was). The lights would be turned off to save oil, the fire would be out to save wood and the only warm place to be was under about 11 blankets. And it was about 7 o'clock.

But of course, unmarried men and women couldn't just sleep together in the same bed. It was hardly allowed even for married couples, although I'm sure they also justified it (at least in the winter months) as a way of staying warm. But sharing a bed did come to be accepted as part of the rural colonial courtship practice so long as one or both of those involved would be sewn into some kind of bag, more or less assuring that no hanky-panky would occur. The bags were usually made of soft cloth and often were sewn tightly at the waist. Other models offered a little more security, being more like mummy sleeping bags, sewn tight above the chest. I suppose one could creatively circumvent the bag, but probably not without making a lot of racket, which would have awoken other members of the household, some of which no doubt slept with pistols under their bedpans.

There were other variations on the bundling bag, most notably the bundling board which was a plank separating the two sides of the bed. Less secure yet was a bolster or pillows. Either way, it usually beat sleeping in the barn, which was the next option. A bundling board wasn't, however, good enough for a married Sheriff up for re-election in the early 1800s. As the story goes:

The office-seeker came to a rural home late in the afternoon. He inquired whether he could obtain a meal, and lodging for the night. The reply was that he could have both. The supper was a fine one, and the candidate was in excellent humor.

As was customary in those days, folks went to bed rather early, and on announcing that he believed he would be off to bed, if they would tell him where to sleep, he'd retire.

The farmer said: "We don't have much room, but you can sleep with the hired girl."

The candidate replied that he was a married man, and a candidate, too, and that if it became generally known throughout the county that he had slept with a hired girl during his campaign, even with a bundling board between them, that some constituents might misconstrue his motives and manners: Could he have no other place to sleep? The farmer said the only other place he could think of was in the barn.

So rather than chance it to sleep with the hired girl on account of what might have happened to his campaign, he decided on the barn.

Pretending to be asleep, early the next morning he heard the hired girl come into the stable to let out the cows.

After milking one or two, she came back to release a bull which had become restless, leading him to one of the cows. The story goes that the old bull sniffed around a bit, turned his head, and walked away. This infuriated the maid, and she yelled at the bull in evident disgust: "What the devil's a-matter with you? Are you a candidate for sheriff, too?"

Have a 14-year old daughter you want fitted for a bundle bag? Well, so do I and I hear they're on sale at the Kentucky Walmarts all this week. They come in all sizes and at the Walmart price you can afford to buy enough for the whole family, even those pesky 2nd and 3rd cousins who are always stopping by. Some things just can't be improved....

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Converting Old Video Tapes

Like most families, we have a ton of video that we've taken, most of it since the kids were born. On the rare occasions where we've gotten everybody together to view some of the old tapes, it's been a blast. One of the classic scenes was from when daughter Tiana was 4 or 5 years old and she goes into total tantrum mode because she couldn't have any ice cream after not eating her dinner. It was totally hilarious! I only wish the tapes were better catalogued so that we could find our favorites scenes more easily.

As the kids got a little older, they started playing around with the camcorderby themselves. Tiana, especially, loved making her "movies." Inevitably, the camera became broken and started eating tapes. I was able to resurrect it a couple times, but finally it just quit and could not be re-started. It wouldn't have been a big deal--we probably should upgrade to a smaller digital camera, anyway. The problem is/was, without a compatible camera, we had no way of playing back our old tapes. Basically, we just needed a player.

Well, as it turns out, it's a lot cheaper just to buy a used camera. All our old tapes were 8mm, so we needed an 8mm camera, or better yet, a hi8 camera, which while still being compatible, was able to produce much higher quality video. I finally found a three-year old Samsung on eBay and am anxiously waiting for it's arrival.

After the camera arrives, I think I'll purchase an inepensive DVD recorder. Those have come down in price so much lately, that I'm sure I saw one on sale at Walgreen's the other day for less than $100. At that point, it's a simple matter of hooking up the camera to the DVD recorder and making DVDs of all our tapes, which would be great. From the research I've done, it seems that most, if not all, of the current crop of DVD recorders can convert an analog video signal (whether it's from a camera or broadcast source) and convert it into a digital mp4 file, and from there burn it to a DVD. Depending on your machine, you can do some indexing and titling (is that a word?), which for archival purposes would be a huge help. And from what I understand, the quality of the transfer is usually pretty good. I'm not clear about whether this digital file can then be used by my computer's video authoring software to make more extensive edits.

I found that there is a lot of misinformation out there regarding the conversion of analog video tapes to a digital format. It seems to me that it must be a terribly popular and important subject, considering how ubiquitous the "camcorder" has been for the last 20 years and how many millions of analog tapes (VHS, VHS-C, 8mm and hi8) are out there. It was surprising that I had to do considerable research to be assured that DVD recorders could not only record an already present digital (such as from a digital video camera) file onto a DVD, but could also convert an analog video signal into a digital file. One link that I found helpful is:

  • Converting Analog Video to Digital


  • I'll let you know how the archival process works out once all the pieces are in place.

    Thursday, January 19, 2006

    Banana Cream Pie

    I like pies. When I was growing up, and even now at the ripe, old age of 52, I often preferred to have pies over cake for my birthdays. My mom was a great pie-maker and I remember one pie in particular that was my favorite. She called it "Cascade Berry," but to this day, I'm still not totally sure what a Cascade berry is. I know there's a Cascade blueberry, but the berries my mom used were more akin to a kind of blackberry. But there's a universe of pies, all of which I crave. Lemon meringue, coconut-cream, even mincemeat are memorable for me. And don't even get me started on pumpkin--I've been known to eat an entire pumpkin pie at one sitting.

    A few months ago, I had a pie craving. We had a frozen piecrust in the fridge and a box of banana instant pudding. I made the pudding, poured it into the pie crust and for some strange reason, it didn't turn out too well. I heard about that runny, chemical-tasting pile of goo for a long time after, especially from my youngest daughter, who was the only one brave enough to eat more than a small spoonful. I've since had a banana cream pie that my brother-in-law made that was pure ambrosia, due to the homemade filling and the delectable crust, which he also made from scratch. Never was the difference between a readymade, prepackaged food and something homemade driven home to me more than that night. What a difference!

    Yesterday I had another craving and found that we had the necessary ingredients for a banana cream pie. I patched up the 6-month old, cracked and dried out frozen pie crust and found a simple recipe for a filling. It was easy and turned out great, the crust notwithstanding. Here's a copy of the recipe.

    INGREDIENTS:
    3/4 cup white sugar
    1/3 cup all-purpose flour
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    2 cups milk
    3 egg yolks, beaten
    2 tablespoons butter
    1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
    1 (9 inch) pie crust, baked
    3-4 bananas, sliced

    DIRECTIONS:
    1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, flour, and salt. Add milk in gradually while stirring gently. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is bubbly. Keep stirring and cook for about 2 more minutes, and then remove from the burner.
    2. Stir a small quantity of the hot mixture into the beaten egg yolks, and immediately add egg yolk mixture to the rest of the hot mixture. Cook for 2 more minutes; remember to keep stirring. Remove the mixture from the stove, and add butter and vanilla. Stir until the whole thing has a smooth consistency.
    3. Slice bananas into the cooled baked pastry shell. Top with pudding mixture.
    4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 12 to 15 minutes. Chill for an hour.

    COMMENTS: I used 2% milk, which worked out fine (some people will even use heavy cream). Make sure the bananas are fully ripe and cut them quite thinly--a quarter inch is probably about right. Pile them up at least one-half inch on the bottom, or you won't enough filling to to fill the pie crust. It took surprisingly long for the mixture to start bubbling, so be patient and be sure to stir continuously. If I had some, I would have thrown in some coconut flakes, into the mixture and sprinkled on top, prior to baking.

    Saturday, January 14, 2006

    Sewer, Seahawks, Barking Dog


    Went to Cle Elum Thursday and amidst a swirling snow, dug out another section of pipe, removing the offending roots, etc that had been blocking (see earlier post). Weather warmed later in the day, rain started and by dark I was working in a quagmire of warm mud, 4-1/2 feet underground. Went to the Cle Elum hardware store, bought some supplies and by noon Friday had the new pipe installed, tested and working fine. Only need to shovel back in the dirt.

    Pass was closed for a while due to avalanche control, but arrived back in Seattle around 3pm, after making a couple stops along the way. Driving along E Lake Samm Way, was interested to see how high the water was getting, putting many, if not most, boat docks well under water. Around 4 went for a very pleasant hill run (three laps) despite a somewhat hard rain. Grabbed a quick latte before returning to car, where Tim had left a message for me to meet him at the Barking Dog, a local bar featuring fine food. Had a nice halibut and chips with Tim, Cathy, Sue and Greg.

    Went on another hill run Saturday morning, where I ran into Cathy. She looked very strong going up and I hope she continues the workout as I think she'll enjoy after she gets a few laps more under her belt. After lunch, had an enjoyable afternoon watching the Seahawks beat up on the Redskins. Best football weekend of the year, with 4 divisional playoff games.

    Wednesday, January 11, 2006

    Hill Running


    As a supplement to our workouts at the gym, my brother and I started running around Seattle's Greenlake about 3-4 years ago. It's a nice, scenic run--flat--probably about 2.5 miles or so and was something I really looked forward to doing two or three times a week. After running the lake more than 200 times, it had become a little predictable and not even much of a sweat-breaker. When my gym membership expired a few months ago, I started looking for a workout routine that was more challenging and more interesting.

    I knew that some people worked out on a steep series of steps not far from my house (near Golden Gardens Park on Shilshoe Bay). I also knew that while running steps is indeed a great cardiovascular activity, it had never really appealed to me. I thought, however, that if I could combine the steps with some fairly steep, adjacent trails, I could come up with a pretty good workout. I put together a run up and down the bluff (300+' elevation gain) combining a very pretty, but steep, trail with 80 or 90 steep steps at the top. It takes about 10-12 minutes to run up and down, including a couple quick rest stops. Lately, I've been doing three sets. It takes me about one hour of total time from leaving the house to returning.

    The results after about three weeks have been outstanding. It doesn't bother my back like the pounding of running around Greenlake sometimes did; it gets my heart rate up far higher for far longer (in the 170bpm range); and it's just a much more interesting and challenging workout, which makes me actually look forward to doing it every day, just like I looked forward to running a few years ago. The best part is that it has proved very transferable to my bicycling, giving me a big endurance lift, especially on hillclimbs.

    All things considered, I would recommend a hill climb workout combined with a few steps for just about anyone who's up to an high cardiovascular intensity. Will I get tired of it after a few months? Probably. But by then I'll be back on the bike and it won't matter as much. In the meantime, I'll keep you posted.

    Tuesday, January 10, 2006

    On Shaving

    Is there a grown person in this country who has never shaved? If so, I would truly like to meet him or her and seek to understand how they have resisted the onslaught of television advertising for razers and shavers. I did some research: Gillette alone spends over $700 million annually on its advertising budget for razors--7% of its gross revenues. Although they top the list, other manufacturers push total advertising to over a billion dollars. It's all about marketshare with these guys.

    The history of shaving is fascinating, but I don't have time to re-hash tht now (see http://www.quikshave.com/timeline.htm). Going back 40 years or so, I do recall my dad using a double-edge safety razor. The blades were exceedingly sharp and thin (making them somewhat flexible) and you were lucky not to slice off the top of your finger when you changed them.

    I seem to remember that Gillette came out with a cartridge razor just as I began shaving around 1970. This was a huge improvement as you never actually had to touch the blade. When it got dull you simply popped it out and clicked in a new cartridge. It was probably 1976 or '77 that the first twin-blade cartridges came out and then a few years later I think it was Bic that brought us the first twin-blade disposable razors, which I loved. The idea of a three or four blade razor was ludicrous--not only from a technological point of view, but functionally as well. Even if such a razor could be made, who would need it? The razors at the time were so superior to what had been used that no improvement was deemed necessary.

    But that's not how business works. In 1998 Gillette introduced the Mach3, a three-bladed razor that came with a huge increase in price over the two-bladed system, which had become ubiqitous, and was cheap. The Mach3 was a huge success, selling over 100 million units in its first year. The ultimate razor had been created--at least until Schick's marketing department created a huge buzz with the introduction of the Quatro in 2002. While the Quatro was even more expensive, it did take marketshare away from the Mach3. Gillette has since come out with some enhancements of the Mach3, including the M3 PowerNitro, which is battery assisted. But they never came out with a competing 4-blade system and as it turns out, the reason for that is because they've been working on a five-blade system, called the Fusion, which is due out later this year. You can just imagine the marketing blitz that will engulf us upon the introduction of that razor.

    I've read estimates that men spend an average of 3000 hours shaving during their lifetime. I've had varying degrees of facial hair over the last 20-30 years and don't think I will ever approach that figure. During most of that time, I've either used cheap twin-blade disposables or an electric razor, both of which I was perfectly happy with. Maybe two or three years ago, I received a free Mach3 razor in the mail. It sat in my basement medicine cabinet until last week when I decided to give it a try. Well, I'm here to tell you, that was the smoothest, slickest, most satisfying shave I have ever experienced. It was absolutely transcendent and in my mind, the twin-bladed razor was immediately obsolete. Now, I almost look forward to shaving and need to spread the word about this incredible razor. If anybody has tried the Quattro, I'd love to hear from you, but I just can't imagine it getting any better than this. Does that sound familiar?

    Saturday, January 07, 2006

    Saturday January 7th


    Well, I'm sure you're all excited to hear how my sewer adventure went, and I'm happy to say that after about 6 hours of digging, things are looking good, my aching shoulders notwithstanding. I was finally able to locate the main line, which was a staggering 4-1/2 feet underground--much deeper than necessary. I dug a trench exposing about ten feet of the line and then started cutting out sections of pipe. Near the end of the trench I found what I was looking for--an absolute knot of roots and debris, blocking the sewer line save for a small hole about 1" in diameter through which liquid, at least, could slowly seep. It was late in the day and had started raining, so I'll need to go back next week and finish the job, which will probably involve extending the trench another 5-6 feet. When you consider how deep the line is buried, that's a lot of digging, all done by shovel and mattock. This backed-up sewer situation has been an occasional problem for at least ten years, so it's good to finally isolate the situation and know that it can be fixed.

    Friday, January 06, 2006

    Friday January 6th

    Well, I'm off to our cabin in Cle Elum later this morning so if you need to get ahold of me, call me on the cell.

    Been having sewer problems lately, with occasional toilet backups which create a real hassle with the kids especially. Last week, I was at last able to isolate the problem to a section of the main sewer pipe about 25 feet away from the house, next to an old plum tree. I have but little doubt that roots from the tree have gotten into the sewer. This can be a real problem, as whenever roots get a foothold into a pipe, they tend to grow quickly, as they are getting a steady diet of fertilizer and water every time someone flushes the toilet. I've removed pipe sections 4-5 feet long that are basically solid roots, with maybe just a little channel left in the middle for the water to slowly seep through. It's not a problem with modern plastic pipes, which are root-proof because all joints are glued solid and the pipes themselves are totally impermeable. But before plastic pipes came into play, residential sewer pipes were generally made of baked clay or concrete, where pipe sections were just butted together, usually without any kind of joint compound at all. Over time, as bushes and trees mature, almost invariably roots will get into the line, causing backups. I've alreadåy replaced most of the line in Cle Elum, but this is one section I haven't done yet.

    It's not a fun job, especially in the winter with cold temps and rain or snow. What one has to do is simply did down through about 5 feet of dirt with a pick or shovel until the line is reached. You then have to continue digging until you find where the problem is, cut out the bad section and then replace it with new piping. It's backbreaking, messy work but it has to be done. To call in a professional plumber would probably cost around $1500-$2000, so at least I'm thankful I have the time to do it myself. If the weather isn't too nasty, I should be able to get it done in a couple days and be back in Seattle tomorrow (Saturday) late afternoon.