New Grill

We purchased a $99 gas grill from Home Depot 10 years ago.  The grill resided in the garage for those 10 years and was used to regularly to cook hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, brats, and other delicacies.  It was beginning to show its age and so my wife, Jean, decided the grill would be replaced as a birthday gift for me by May 7th, my birthday.

The grill was to me like an old friend.  It had its quirks but it always worked.  The grill had two plastic pieces fitted into legs in the front of the grill and two wheels connected by an axel in the back.  One of the plastic pieces broke and would always fall off while moving the grill. Consequently the plastic pieces always had a free ride in the grill unto I pulled it to its next working location.  The grill would also collect massive amounts of grease.  After the grease collected to a certain amount, the grill would then stage a notable grease fire.  The grease fire could only be extinguished with large amounts of water.  In order to avoid the grease conflagration, I would scrape the grease from the grill after every other use.  Despite the grease clean-up, the grill would find new grease deposits and flare up between uses.  We also washed the grill after every use to keep the grease down and make sure tastes from prior meals did not interfere with the taste of the current meal.

I protested the current grill was good enough and keep going another ten years but to no avail.  I was getting a new grill.

I was able to stem the tide on a new grill for two months.  We first checked Menards and then Home Depot and visited them each a second time.  The new grills were either too large or too expensive. Finally we found a Char-Broil grill which was small and was about the right price at Menards.

The Char-Broil grill came from the Menard’s storage location in one huge box. The box said it was made in China.  The packing material was larger than the grill.  After forcing the new grill’s pieces from the box, we constructed it.  I should say Jean constructed it.  Jean reads the instruction sent with the product.  Me, I more or less free lance and most of the time I put a part in a wrong place which requires the people constructing the product to start over.  Jean follows the included instruction by the book and does not allow any divergence from the printed instructions.  She took the rein for the new grill while carefully following the instructions and did not allow me to deviate.  We put the grill together in 1.5 hours.  If I would have been in charge, it would have taken three hours at a minimum. Her way is much more efficient than mine but my way allows for a lot more provocative words.

The Char-Broil grill is something called an infrared grill.  It is supposed to be more heat efficient than my old grill.  After two meals, it does not appear to generate as much fire from grease as my old grill.  The new grill also cooks faster but requires one to clean the grill by setting it to the highest level for 15 minutes so it can vaporize the residual fat and grease.  It does not appear to be as susceptible to grease fires as the old grill.

Because the Char-Boil replaced my old grill, the old grill had to go.  I was going to reluctantly set it on the curb for the Madison collection crew.  My next door neighbor’s wife said her husband might be interested in assuming ownership.  I waited for two days and there appeared to be no interest from next door.  The next day was trash day and I went to put our trash cans and the old grill out to the curb.  To my surprise, the old grill was no longer there but I could see it on the neighbor’s porch.  My neighbor’s husband came over, grabbed the grill, fixed the plastic part, and purchased a new LP gas cylinder with LP gas.  He said it worked perfectly and could not understand why we would part with such a good grill.

I shook my head and responded, “It was my birthday present!”

He said he now understood.

I can now take some solace in I can now watch the neighbor use my old grill while I try to figure out how to use the new grill.

Bahama Cruise 2019

As you get older you realize your memory is not as good as it once was and so you need to make adjustments.  Right now I can remember some occasions in the long past and what was done a few days ago.  But events held months ago appear to be erased from my memory.  It is very embarrassing when someone comes up to you as says, "Do you remember when we did _____________" (fill in the blank)  and you have no idea what they are talking about.  You realize you were probably there but have no memory of that occurrence or even being at the event.  So that is why, dear Reader, I am writing this story of my remembrance of a cruise my family and extended family members took on the Carnival Liberty ship from March 24 - March 28, 2019 to the Bahamas.  During the four day cruise, we were at sea for two days and The Liberty docked at Nassau on the 26th and Freeport on the 27th. It is not so much for you as it is for me.

My mother and father raised five kids, four boys and a girl.  My middle brother Steve suggested a few years ago that the entire extended family go on a cruise.  He is a farmer and milks cows at 4 am and 4 pm.  He was never on a cruise and thought the idea of eating all day and sleeping without worrying about milking cows sounded like a great time.  So my sister, Diane (DeDe as she likes to be called) and her husband, Dale, pursued the idea of this cruise which came to fruition at the end of March.  The people participating in the cruise were my:

• 88 year old mother, Caroline,
• brother David and his wife, Kathleen,
• brother Steve and his wife, Sharon,
• sister Diane (DeDe) and her husband, Dale,
• sister Diane (DeDe) and husband Dale's oldest son Eric and his wife Lindsay,
• my wife, Jean, and me.

All of these people can be seen in the picture below:

first row: Lindsay, Caroline, Diane, Kathleen

middle: Eric, Jean, Sharon

back: Ralph, Dale, Dave, Steve

We all bought tickets from a guy, Cyrus Washington, working for Carnival months before the cruise. The Carnival Liberty waited for us at Port Canaveral located on the Atlantic Coast side of Florida.  Diane, Dale, and my mother, resided in the Florida.  It was up to the rest of us to fly to the Orlando airport, be picked up by Dale on the 23rd, and then be taken to the ship on the 24th.

Most of us were cruise newbies.  Grandma (Caroline) sailed on the most cruises and was the most experienced.  The embarkation process for  the Liberty was relatively painless.  We showed a crew member our passport, they checked us against a list they had on a laptop computer, someone else took a picture which was loaded into the ship's database, we were given a room card with our name, and then we were told how to find our stateroom.  Our luggage would meet up with us by 6 p.m. that night delivered by a Liberty crew member outside our room.  

We entered the ship from the front (fore) and our staterooms were located in the back (aft).  We took an elevator to the eighth floor and walked across the ship to our rooms.  After checking into the room, we were told we could walk up to the 9th floor and begin our eating experience.  We walked up to the ninth floor and were amazed at the amount of food available in three or four areas.  American, Chinese, Italian, and other ethnic foods were available in banquet lines.  The drinks were limited to water, ice tea, or lemonade. Alcoholic and more exotic drinks were available at bars located at the fore and aft sections for a price.   Every eating area had a dining room.  Besides dining rooms tables were available near the bars both fore and aft.  We congregated in an area in the aft part of the ship called the Lido Deck.

The price for alcoholic drinks started at $8 and went up from there.  If you wanted an alcoholic drink you presented your ship card to the bartender.  They would then swipe it in their computer and the price of the drink was added to your bill at checkout.  If you wanted to avoid a charge for each drink then you could pay for an drink pass which cost $56 per person per day.  With that pass you could order up to 15 drinks.  If you had the drink pass the cost of the 16th drink was then added to your bill at the time of checkout.

After eating we were notified all personnel, staff and tourists, must attend a mandatory muster drill at 6 pm.  People bunking in odd numbered staterooms needed to meet on the right side of the boat on the first floor near the lifeboats.  People bunking in even numbered staterooms met on the left side of the boat on t he first floor near the left side lifeboats.  Liberty staff took attendance and everyone needed to be there before the muster could take place.  The Liberty held 2,200 tourists and 1,100 staff.  The time required to get everyone in place on both sides of the boat was 20 minutes.  After standing for 30 minutes, the cruise director, Paully, read off instructions on how to correctly put on a life vest.  This exercise lasted less than 5 minutes and then we were all dismissed.  The grumbling from the people standing in place on deck for 30 minutes for no apparent reason drowned out Paully's dismissal announcement.

Our luggage arrived as promised before 6 pm.  We unpacked the luggage and explored the ship. The Liberty had a casino, two large dining rooms called Silver and Gold, two swimming pools, a number of hot tubs, a water slide, a theater, a large outdoor screen, small rooms for smaller events, and a central area where events such as trivia, violin ensembles, and bingo were held.

The staterooms were small.  They had a bed, a toilet, a shower, and some storage space.  The rooms had but one electric socket.  The one electric outlet encouraged use of multiple extension cords.  The toilet sucked the waste away so you avoided sitting on the toilet when you pushed the handle or you might have some part of your body suctioned away with the waste.

The first day and a half of the cruise was totally on the ship.  We departed Port Canaveral at 6 pm on Sunday, March 24th and sailed to Nassau, Bahamas.  The ship had cameras showing the progress at the front of the ship.  The ship had monitors placed in different locations showing the progress of the ship as it sailed to the Bahamas.  

We spent the first day and a half  sleeping, eating, and exploring. The ninth floor Lido Deck was a nice place to congregate.  It sufficient chairs and tables for groups of people to sit and relax. Soft serve ice cream and yogurt were always available on the Lido deck.  Because the weather was nice and the ice cream and yogurt cold, most people spent time resting on the  the Lido deck.  

Paully would inform people through the ship's intercom of upcoming events.  Most of the noisy events such as a DJ playing music was completed in the front of the ship.  The front of the ship also had a large screen where recent movies were shown.  We sat on deck on Monday night and watched Bohemian Rhapsody.  Bohemian Rhapsody was a rather sad tale about the head of  the rock group Queen, Freddie Mercury.

We did not attend all of the events.  We chose to participate in some games, listen to a three woman violin concert which happened each night, sat in a piano bar, watched a production called Flick and a 70s song presentation in there large concert hall.  The concert hall would have been huge on land but was even more impressive on a ship.

All of the events were fun except for the piano bar.  The piano bar opened at 8 pm, ship time.  We were there a little before 8:00 and the doors were open.  We found a place to sit and waited for the piano player.  At 8:10 a guy made his way to the piano and started playing.  His name tag said Craig.  He never introduced himself.  He played one song.  He alluded to a play list supplied to each table and said he would play any song on the play list and requested people  fill out a piece of paper with their song request. He then played another song and he attempted to accompany the song with his off-key voice.  He then started the first requested song, "Sweet Caroline", and played it very badly while singing it worse.  Craig stated he did his best work when the tip jar had considerable money placed in it.  Craig then chugged a drink and began another song.  His performance of the next song was even worse than "Sweet Caroline".   As Craig massacred the next song our whole contingent of 11 people walked out leaving Craig, his piano, his drinks, and his empty tip jar.

Paully held dance lessons during the day for different participation dances.  Paully would crank up his computer, play a song, and then ask people to come up to the stage so he could teach them dance steps applicable to the song.  Thriller by Michael Jackson was one of his teaching moments.

Paully taught a sequence of Thriller dance steps based on the count of 8.  A specific sequence of dance steps started with the first 8.  The next sequence of different dance steps started with the second 8.  In total Paully taught five sequences of dance steps for Thriller.  One of the more interesting sequences was called Zombie.  For Zombie, the dancer held their hands up in a frightening pose, stomped right, circled, stomped left, and circled.

My mother, Sharon, and DeDe all participated in the Thriller dance class.  It was entertaining watching my 88 year old mother trying to master the sequence of dance steps.  She dropped out of the class after the fourth sequence because she could not remember what to do in the first sequence.  Sharon and DeDe participated in the entire class and danced the entire Thriller song.  Sharon had problems with the instructions because she would turn left when she was supposed to turn right and vice versa.  She was the most unique of the dancers.

Jean, I, and my mother participated in the Nassau port of call but not in Freeport.  We walked through a throng of sellers in Nassau as we walked off the Liberty.  Nassau was extremely hot. We decided the heat and the hawkers were too much and we went back to the Liberty after a short walk down Nassau's main street.  The other group members visited all of Nassau and walked to a beach. After our Nassau experience, we decided not to participate in visiting Freeport the next day.  The group minus my mother, Jean, and me,  told us Freeport was much more enjoyable than Nassau because the hawking was non-existent and the weather cooler. So I guess we should have stayed on the Liberty in Nassau and visited shops in Freeport.

We had nightly meals  and one breakfast in the Gold dining room.  Dress was informal except for Tuesday night when the guys were to wear a suit coat and the women clothes other than blue jeans. Each table had an assigned waiter.  The waiter presented a menu showing three choices for appetizer, entree, and dessert.  You could then pick which of the three or some of the three.  There was no limit. The food was high quality restaurant fare.  We had mahi mahi, beef, baked Alaska, tiramisu and many other high quality foods.  In addition to the food, the waiters staged shows on Sunday and Wednesday after they served the food.  The dancing and singing after the meal were surprises.

After the Liberty visited Freeport,  it was time for the ship to turn around and return to Port Canaveral.  The captain came on the speaker and said the seas would be between 10 and 15 feet on our way back and to expect the ship to bounce.  The Liberty did bounce among the waves that night and the following morning.  We took various medicines to ward off possible seasickness.

The Liberty arrived in port on March 28th.  We had until 9 am to leave our rooms because the ship was to set out for the sea with a new bunch of passengers four hours later.  The cleaning staff had a short time frame to clean the rooms and get them ready.

Paully thanked everyone and said this was the first cruise he directed.  We all had a good time.  My brother Steve was able to eat constantly, enjoy ice cream, and sleep at will.  He had a wonderful time and did not want to leave the Liberty.

After the cruise we were sent a survey via Email.  We were asked to rate the cruise in a number of areas and supply comments on how to make the cruise better in the future.  My comments for improvement were limited to Craig.  I told them we did not think a cruise ship required a piano bar and suggested using the space for something else.  Perhaps Craig could be designated as a demonstration for evacuating the boat during the mustering demonstration.

I did take photos and short videos on the cruise using a new camera I received for Christmas.  I then compiled a video.  You can view it on Youtube (my first Youtube video) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA4QzyMdg-E

Trombone

I play the slide trombone.   Perhaps a better statement is that I maneuver the trombone's slide and mouthpiece to make noise. 

The slide trombone consists of a mouthpiece, slide, and bell.  (Other trombones exist with keys that work in concert with the slide.  That is much too sophisticated for me.) You blow through the mouthpiece and the air goes through the slide to the bell where the noise, the music, comes out the end.  An ordinary trombone allows you to vary the slide in different lengths from the mouthpiece.  The different lengths in combination with different  mouth positions in the mouthpiece allows one to vary the tones as they exit the bell.  The different lengths of slide are known as "positions" and one has seven positions to create different notes in a trombone.  The first position is when the slide has not moved and that position is the one position is the same for each and every trombone player.  After that the length for each of the six remaining  positions is an approximate length.  Depending on the length of your arm, seventh position may or may not be reachable.  Unlike a keyed instrument such as a trumpet, none of the six remaining positions is an exact length although you must be in a range of length, a position, to achieve a note corresponding to a note shown in the music.

I started playing trombone in grade school.  Mr. Patton, the middle school teacher (at that time it was known as a junior high) recruited different people to play different instruments at the grade school level so that he had the right combination of instruments at the junior high.  His mixture of instruments then followed to Mr. Hanson at the senior high level.  Mr. Patton wanted a certain number of brass and woodwinds.  He did not want too many of one type of brass, such as trumpets, and no lower brass, such as trombones.  For every kid that wanted to play a trumpet he would counter with another brass instrument. 

 Mr. Patton began his selection process in grade school.  When I was in sixth grade, Mr. Patton told me and my parents there was a wealth of trumpet players and not enough  trombone players.  He told us playing trombone would be the ticket to playing in the junior then senior high band.  What he did not tell us was that anyone playing an instrument would be part of the band no matter the instrument.    But being a grade school kid with parents who had no experience with instruments, my parents and I took his sales job at face value and I became a trombone player.  We bought a trombone, a trombone I still have a play, and the trombone playing experience began.

Mr. Patton did this sell job to a number of other kids with similar parents.  By the time we reached junior high there were about 12 kids playing trumpet and another 12 playing trombone.

One of the truths in navigating the trombone at the junior and senior high was one needed to practice.  It was suggested the minimum amount of practice should be an hour per day and this should be completed before homework was started. The inference was the musical education was more important than education from books. To encourage this truth, each of the players, whether trumpet or trombone, were seated according to the player's ability.  People practicing the suggested hour per day became 1st section trombones.  People practicing every once in a while became 2nd section trombones.  People who never practiced became 3rd section trombones.  In each section chairs were assigned according to the trombone player's ability.  Being 1st chair in the 1st section was the most prestigious.  In each section, people were encouraged to challenge the person in front of them.  The challenge occurred behind a curtain.  Each player was given the same portion of music and asked to play.  After they played then the band director determined the best of the players. If you were better than the person in front of you then you moved up and he or she moved to your seat. The band directors, both Patton and Hansen, made a big deal of  this challenge and challenges occurred constantly after the daily band practice for any instrument in the band where there was interest in moving up.

I was one who accepted the hype regarding the challenge.  I practiced constantly and was a 1st section trombone.  I challenged to be 1st chair of the 1st section but never was good enough, no matter the amount of practice, to become 1st chair.  I was always 2nd chair or lower throughout my junior and senior high music career. In retrospect I should have settled for 1st chair 2nd section which meant more relaxation in high school.

After high school I never picked up a trombone until our church wanted to have trombones play some Thanksgiving music in 1997.  The trombone was taken from the case and made noise for Thanksgivings in 1997, 1998, and 1999.

The trombone then stayed in its case for the next 10 years.  The church hired a new music director and he wanted to start a church orchestra.  Since then I have played the trombone almost every year for music in Christmas and Easter.

I realize now much better trombone players exist.  I could practice the church music 24 hours per day and I would only be mediocre.  The trombones made today have better range and give better sound than the one I play.  I am content playing the music with lower notes, a 3rd section trombone level, with having some one play at the 1st chair level.

With age, I realize practicing music pieces alone is fine but I need rehearsals so that I can determine how to play the music with the other instruments.

To show you how outclassed I have become I can relate to you my experience for Christmas 2018.

The current church music director decided a brass quartet would be nice to have on Christmas Eve.  He had a similar brass quartet for Christmas Eve 2017 and he was very satisfied.  I was not part of the 2017 effort because I was recovering from a November knee replacement surgery.

He was so satisfied with Christmas 2017 that he sent out the music on December 14th.  He then scheduled a 15 minute rehearsal that was later cancelled.  The first rehearsal with the music occurred at 3:30 pm on December 24th for a 4:30 service. The music director obtained a degree in organ at the Julliard School of Music in New York City and is a prodigy on organ or piano.  The quartet was comprised of two trumpets, a father and a son who each taught trumpet, a college student playing trombone as a major at the University of Minnesota, his mother who played trombone along with many other instruments, and me. The rehearsal lasted 5 minutes because "everyone knew the music".  Perhaps everyone excluding me knew the music because they were much better players than me but I could never say that I "knew the music".

I practiced the music for at least an hour per day from December 14th to December 23rd.  But practicing alone is not the same as rehearsing.  Rehearsing allows one to find out how fast the music will be played and how loud.  For someone like me who is, I admit it, mediocre at best, rehearsing the music a few times is invaluable. 

But the show had to go on.  The quartet had five pieces.  Four of the pieces were familiar Christmas hymns and for those I "knew the music" even though the trombone position placement was inaccurate for some notes.  The fifth piece was a different matter.  I played it with some minor goofs during the 5 minute rehearsal.  However,  at the church service I got horribly lost in the music as the other four members and the director went merrily along.

I like playing trombone.  However at this stage in my life if I would play the trombone with an established group outside of church I would probably be at the fourth level at the bottom chair which would probably me sitting in a chair in a cemetery by myself playing to a captive audience.

My Mother's Florida

My 87 year old mother has wintered for over two decades in a mobile home at a mobile home park in Rockledge, Florida.  In fact, the mobile home is permanent because it never moved from its location. Even so she needs to purchase a license plate and an occupancy sticker from the good people at the State of Florida Department of Transportation.

My mother looks forward to returning to Florida each winter. Besides better weather than what we have in Wisconsin, she looks forward to seeing fellow snowbirds from as far away as Canada who take residence in the mobile home park each year.

Rockledge is located in the middle of the state of Florida on the Atlantic Coast side near Cape Canaveral.  She can watch rockets launch from the Cape by simply walking out her front door, looking up at the sky,  and staring south. Rockledge was not affected by Hurricane Michael which wiped out Florida's western panhandle in 2018.  However in 2017, Hurricane Irma hit Rockledge with torrential rain.  My mother's mobile home is on blocks and managed to stay just above the water line for flooding occurring at the campground.  Her shed containing tools and gardening equipment tried to float away but stayed near her mobile home thanks to an outside electrical cord which was attached to her mobile home.

As she has gotten older and the TSA become meaner, we decided that she should be accompanied when she winters in Florida and when she returns to Wisconsin in the spring.   The TSA check that concerned us the most and caused us to accompany her to Florida occurred three years ago when she left by herself from Midway airport in Chicago.  The Midway TSA people essentially strip searched her.  That is why we now accompany her on her way down to Florida in fall and back to Wisconsin in spring. Now that Jean and I are both retired these trips are less constrained by time and so we can spend more time in Florida with her.  TSA appears to be less aggressive when three people go through the line together rather one single, older woman.

We flew down to Florida from Milwaukee with her on November 6th, the day of the fall elections.  All three of us went through the TSA pre-check line.  The TSA people were in a generally good mood (I even saw one smile) and we got through with minimal difficulty.  I assume they were in a fairly good mood despite or because of the election.  Because both my mother and I have steel in our legs from prior leg operations, we did need to go through their XRay machine and have a wand pass over all parts of our body before we could proceed to the departure gate. 

We stayed for 10 days. She did not appear to mind our intrusion into her Florida routine of visiting with neighbors, playing cards and bingo, and watching sports.  She is a great Brewers, UW football and basketball, and Packers fan.  She is happy when they win and also critical when they lose.  When one of her favorite teams has an especially painful loss she has a favorite phrase, "They stink!".

After an uneventful flight, my brother-in-law picked up us three from the Orlando airport and drove us the last leg to Rockledge. He and my sister, whom live in nearby Melbourne, opened up her mobile home, turned on her electricity, and made it ready for occupancy.  Jean and I stayed with her for our 10 day stay.

During our stay, Florida was in one word, hot.  Temperatures each day were in the upper 80s or low 90s and the humidity was high.  Locals said the weather was extremely hot for November.  The air conditioner in her mobile home ran the entire time we were there. We expected warm but not hot and so any outdoor activities were limited because of the heat.

At the campground we me her neighbors, had cook-outs, played cards, and relaxed.  Her friends organize a card game called Euchre, twice a week.  For a dollar, one can win as much as four dollars after playing 64 hands of Euchre.  All three of us participated in a Euchre tournament and each of us lost our $1 dollar entry fee.

Outside the campground, we participated in two trivia contests at a local bar with the name of Cheers, two movies, had a meal with my sister and brother-in-law and toured the Kennedy Space Center.

She looked forward to the trivia contest.  We found the trivia contest at Cheers last spring when we went down to bring her back to Wisconsin.  The trivia contest is a series of 20 questions from a local DJ named Mike.  It costs nothing to enter.  At our first try on November 7th, our team, my mother, me, and Jean, against 10 other teams led until the last question.  The last question was a Florida question regarding the length of one of the interstates in Florida.  We failed the question miserably and missed out on a $15 gift certificate to Cheers.  Our second try on November 14th, we ended up near the bottom.  But we ate food, drank beer, and had fun answering questions for two hours.  A sample question was, "What country has the largest number of Roman Catholics per capita?"  Our answer to the November 14th questions was Ireland.  The correct answer was Brazil.  After Mike read the correct answer part of the bar where the winning teams were erupted in applause.  She wants us to compete again next May and win this time.

The most interesting part of our Florida visit was the NASA Kennedy Space Center.  For $50 dollars apiece we had a tour of the entire property on an air-conditioned bus, saw exhibits for the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle missions, and went to buildings housing an Apollo rocket and the Atlantis Space Shuttle.  $50 apiece may appear at first sight to be a lot of money but compared to other tourist sites in Florida such as Disneyworld where admission exceeds $100, it is a bargain.

The tour bus operator drove around a portion of the 144,000 acre property.  We could see the building where rockets are put together, Launch Pad 39, where most of the launches occur, and the SpaceX launch pad which is NASA's future.  NASA wants to focus on Mars and not the moon so it has entered into public/government partnerships for moon flights.  We were told we could take pictures of anything other than the guard shacks.  Pictures of the guard shacks meant automatic confiscation of your camera.  We also saw an alligator and the fencing NASA uses to keep alligators away from the launch pads. The fencing is about 7 feet high with concertina wire on top and is tilted outward because alligators can climb a fence and get into the complex if the fence position would be straight up and down.

Ideally it takes two days to tour the Kennedy Space Center because of the number of exhibits and the distance between exhibits. We had one day.  NASA developed shows regarding each of its development projects.  We went from Mercury to Apollo to the Space Shuttle.  NASA actually had the original control room for one of the Apollo missions functioning during one of  its presentations.  The size of the Mercury rocket and capsule was minute compared to the hardware developed for the Apollo and Space Shuttle missions.    You did not realize how big an Apollo rocket or a space shuttle was until you walked the entire length of both in their separate exhibits. According to NASA over 2.5 million parts had to work flawlessly in order to have successful Apollo and Space Shuttle missions.

 NASA had a separate exhibit directed to the astronauts who died in  the failure of Apollo 1, Columbia and Challenger. 

All told the Kennedy Space Center was the highlight of our Florida trip.  It was slightly higher than the time my mother rejoiced after supplying our trivia team a correct answer to a Cheers trivia question.

Based on our ten day stay with my mother, I now better understand her six months in Florida.  Where else can you swelter during a Wisconsin winter, play cards, meet interesting people, watch a missile launch, and disparage a Wisconsin sports team when they lose?

Fallen Rocks

Adventures good and bad occur at times when you least expect and with people you are sure they will never happen with.  Such is the case on Wisconsin 35 in mid-September with my wife and mother-in-law.

My wife's niece and her husband were married two years ago.  They started their marriage in her condominium but they both wanted to purchase a house.  They sold the condominium near River Falls, Wisconsin and purchased a house in New Richmond, Wisconsin.  Being proud of the new purchase, they soon invited people to a housewarming.  New Richmond is located between Eau Claire and River Falls.  My mother-in-law wanted to attend the housewarming but did not want to drive the distance, which took three hours by car, by herself.  So my wife and I drove from Madison to Prairie du Chien to pick her up.  We would then drive to La Crosse where we would join my wife's sister and husband.  The La Crosse contingent would then drive  all of us to New Richmond.

After picking my mother-in-law up on a bright, clear Saturday morning.  We then took the next step and began driving to La Crosse.

The drive from Prairie du Chien to La Crosse is scenic  Wisconsin 35 (WI 35) follows the Mississippi River.  It is a two lane highway carved out of bluffs which rise to the east of the highway in many places along the route.  Each encounter of bluffs carries a corresponding warning sign "Watch for Fallen Rocks".  There exists no follow-up sign telling you what to do if you encounter a "fallen rock" but the signs exist nonetheless.

I was driving our 2003 Honda Odyssey van with my wife and mother-in-law.  We could see boats in the river as well as towboats towing large quantities of barges along the Mississippi.

The drive was quite uneventful until I passed a "Watch for Fallen Rocks" sign near Ferryville, rounded a corner, and hit a rock the size of a lunchbox on the side of the road with the passenger front tire.  Seeing the rock was one thing.  Listening to the car hit the rock with a fearsome clunk was another. I thought we had blown a tire or worse and would be forced to pull off the road in an area where no shoulder existed.  However the car and the tire kept going.

The reaction from the passengers was immediate.  "Didn't you see the rock?  We saw it.  We don't believe you hit the rock!  Why did you hit that rock?  We saw it, didn't you?"

I was still a little stunned after hitting the rock.  My only response was, "Yes, I saw the rock but it was a little hard to miss it once I saw it."  

I did see the rock and due to oncoming traffic and the lack of a shoulder my mind apparently thought it was best, for safety purposes, to hit the rock rather than hitting someone straight on from the other direction or crash into the side of the bluff.  I agreed with the passengers assessment that missing the rock would have been the right move.

We drove a mile down the road until we could safely pull off to see the rock damage to the tire and/or van.  The turn off was a city road and there an older guy was cutting grass on a riding lawn mower next to the road.  We pulled up, stopped, and my wife and I  left the van to look at the damage.  There was a golf ball side bulge on the sidewall of the tire.  The old guy got off his riding lawn mower and sauntered over to the van.  He went over to the passenger side, looked at the bulge, sighed, and shook his head.

"Well, it doesn't look good.  Unfortunately the shops in town are closed on a Saturday afternoon.  I  can give you a name of a guy I know in town.  He may be able to fix it.  He might not be home because of course it is a Saturday afternoon, you know.   You could go up the hill where we are standing for about 10 miles.   There might be a feller there but it is a Saturday afternoon."

We thanked the old guy for his help or lack thereof.  We both returned to the van.

My wife made the decision about going 10 miles up the road or continuing on WI35.  "if Ferryville isn't open then why would 10 miles up the road be any different?"

I didn't have a different opinion. We decided the best route was to continue driving along WI35 albeit slower and hope the tire would hold out until we reached La Crosse which was 30 miles away.

The van moved along WI35 at or under 55 mph.  Because there are no areas to pass along  WI35 there were many frustrated motorists following our slow progress, although I  tried to keep to the 55 mph speed limit.  We passed Ferryville, Lynxville, Victory, De Soto, and Genoa.  Each town passed was a small victory because the bulging tire had not blown.

My wife called her sister and she advised us to drive to a tire change place when, or if, we made it to La Crosse.  We finally did make to La Crosse and the tire change place was closed on a Saturday afternoon.  The only other place to have a new tire installed was Walmart.  Walmart was open.  They did have a tire and they did replace the tire an hour after we visited the store.  The bulge on the side of the tire was now the size of a grapefruit.

We did make it to the housewarming uneventfully with my brother-in-law driving their Dodge Caravan.  We then came back the next day to La Crosse.  I then drove from La Crosse to Prairie du Chien in the Honda without further mishap.  I looked for my rock on the road near Ferryville and it was not there. 

I guess everything turned out fine.  However, I still  would have liked a follow-up sign telling me what to do when I hit a "fallen rock".

Crashing

My diabetic nurse two months ago was adamant, "You must exercise to keep your blood sugar numbers down!"

Her statement was not much of a surprise.  I was diagnosed as a Type II diabetic as a Christmas present in 1999.  Since then I had a number of discussions with people versed in diabetic knowledge.  The exercise part of the quarterly diabetes discussion was absent while I worked because I rode my bike back and forth to work for 10 months of the year.  I chickened out when we had lightning associated with thunderstorms, large quantities of snow associated with blizzards, and temperatures below 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

Now that I was retired,  not needing to ride my bicycle to work, and I could actually move my left leg in a circular motion after my November 20, 2017 knee replacement, I responded, "I will  ride my bike to keep my blood sugar in check."

The response was, "Good.  Ride at least an hour each day."

So I am now back to bike riding.  I enjoy the bike ride each morning unless it is raining or the bike breaks.  The bike's rear tire has a tendency to acquire broken spokes which stops the bike riding until the spokes are replaced.   I do not ride fast.  People pass me regularly and look back wondering how anyone can ride so slowly.    My one hour or more ride gives me time to think.  As I was riding one day, I thought, "I can't think of anything I am good at while riding a bike.  There must be something I am good at. "

My brain came up with the answer about something that I am exceptional at doing, crashing. After living for 63 years, one can take an introspective appraisal of strengths and weaknesses.  The inventory of strengths is a short list.  The length of weaknesses is considerably longer.  I am not sure whether crashing into something and hurting yourself should be taken as a strength or weakness.

My initial crash was when I was 10 months old and I was not the cause of the crash but the recipient.  My parents and I were riding along in a car.  I was in the front seat in a baby seat.  A car hit us broadside.  We all landed in the hospital. I went through a series of operations on my legs to correct problems with my legs as a result of the car crash.  

I can blame that crash on my parents but the rest of the crashes I must take responsibility.

My best friend in high school saved money and purchased a Harley Davidson motorcycle.  His motorcycle was the type termed a "hog".  I thought, at least I think was my idea, to also purchase a Harley Davidson motorcycle so that I could ride with him.  My problem was I had limited funds and a "hog" was not a possibility.  Another thought I had was that I was much more comfortable traveling on four wheels rather than two driving 60 miles per hour down a county road.  With limited funds, I was able to purchase a small Harley.  The Harley would get up to 60 on a county road if you pushed it.  The Harley had its troubles.  The battery would not function properly and the headlights would turn off when the battery was not fully charged.  The headlights would turn off while riding it which was against the law.  Unfortunately I did not know the headlights were off until I stopped the motorcycle. I think I rode with my friend once with our two Harleys when mine was in working order.

The motorcycle's light idiosyncrasy was not responsible for my most memorable motorcycle crash.

One day I decided to take the motorcycle into a friend's father's pasture to practice my motorcycle skills, which were not many.  I was riding up and down the pasture when I made a mistake and hit the gas rather than the brakes.  The motorcycle when careening into a barbed wire fence.  I tore up the fingers on my left hand which required stitches at a local hospital.  Shortly after that crash I parked the motorcycle in my friend's parent's garage and walked away.  I figured I was not a motorcycle rider and if I continued, I would hurt more than my fingers. I am not sure what he did with the motorcycle and I did not care.

The remaining notable crashes occurred with nonmotorized transportation, a bicycle.  A friend told me once,  "I saw a statistical analysis once.  People that ride bikes a lot tend to crash once every two years.  That is just the nature of bike riding."  I met his criteria for crashing based on his statistics.

I can crash at any time at any place in Madison.  I crashed twice along the Lake Monona bike path -- once in winter and once in fall.  I crashed once in the Pacific Cycle parking lot which is located a block from where I live.  I have also crashed into a tree that fell across  the Southwest bike trail going to work when it was pitch dark.  

I offer two stories about notable crashes, one on May 20, 2014 and the other on August 18, 2018, as proof of my superior crashing ability.

The May 20th crash occurred as I was coming around a curve near Commonwealth Avenue in Madison at about 5:15 a.m. in the morning.  While I was still working I would rise from my bed at 4 a.m., shower, dress, eat and be on my bike by 5 a.m.  I could then start working by 5:30 a.m.  I could work a full hour and  get work done before the telephone started to ring.  I also liked biking that early in the morning because, for the most part, I was the only one biking at that time in the morning.

As I rounded the curve, I saw a fallen tree on the bike path.  The tree came up so quickly I did not have time to stop or slow the  bike down.  The tree stopped the bike but not me.  I flew over the handle bars and landed on the other side of the tree on my left side.  I tore my biking shirt on the left side and my left elbow immediately started to hurt.  I laid on the bike path, stunned.  I guess I then started to moan. I walked to the side of the bike path and sat down.  Mosquitoes then descended on me and I was too shocked to swat at them.  I looked at my left elbow and it had doubled in size within a minute after me and it hitting the pavement.

The moaning brought results because a couple living along the bike path had heard the moans.  They at first thought it was an animal.  Because the moaning continued, they became curious and ventured down to see what all the noise was about.  They found me. 

The couple was very kind.  They asked me who I was and then called Jean to let her know I was not getting to work anytime soon.  They suggested she come, pick me up, and take me to the hospital.  The husband retrieved the twisted bike from the tree and moved the tree off the bike path. 

The telephone call from the couple woke Jean from a sound sleep.  They told her to drive down and retrieve me from the bike path. She decided to take their advice and arrived soon after to pick stunned me and the smashed bike from near the crash site.

We then had a short dive to the Meriter Hospital emergency room with the smashed bike watching from the back seat of our van.  The doctors and nurses were very kind at the emergency room and cleaned and bandaged my left elbow.  They waited to laugh about my crash until after Jean and I left the emergency room.

As I remember, I did go back to work that day.  It took two months before my left elbow looked normal again.

My August 18th crash was not nearly as exciting as the May 20th crash but this time I crashed on my right side rather than the left side.  I am an equal opportunity crasher.

From where I live, I enter the Southwest bike path by going up an incline to a bridge which spans the major road in Madison called affectionately the Beltline.  As I was going up the incline another biker was coming down.  I tried to move over so that I would not hit the oncoming biker.  I overcompensated and the bike's front wheel slipped on the incline.  I went down.   I hit on my right side right in the middle of the incline.

The oncoming biker stopped, "Are you ok?  I was on my side of the rode.  You just lost it!"

My response was a moan.

"Did you break something?"

"No, I just think I skinned my right elbow."

"Let me see.  You did do a number. It is bleeding.  I will wet it down with water and wash off the dirt."  He used my water to wet it down and wash some of the dirt from the wound.   "I think you will be ok.  I am going on. Good luck."

I then sat down on a bench located near the ramp  for 15 minutes gathering my wits.  I blew out the front tire of the bike and so I could not ride the bike back home.  I walked the bike back home.

After I arrived home, Jean patched me right elbow.  I did not need the emergency room for this crash which was fortunate.  After a month, my right elbow is now looking normal again.

I did crash the next week but not with my bike.  I tripped on a decorative fence while fetching the mail from our house's front mailbox.  I fell into our split hardwood fence and knocked down the fence.  I also tore the skin in certain areas around my stomach.  This was a rather inconsequential crash and so there was no moaning involved.  I save the moaning for bike crashing.

So you see I may not ever be good at speed or endurance while riding my bicycle to keep my blood sugar down.  When other bikers pass me and look back wondering "How can anybody go that slow?" I can smile at them because I know I am better at one thing than they are, crashing.    I am not sure whether I should be or should not be proud of that accomplishment. Perhaps I should look back at them and moan rather than smile.

Ants

We lived in this house since April 1986 and our experiences with vermin has been limited.  We have seen the occasional spider inside the house in the initial years and other than a scream from the female occupants, there was no concern. In the last few years the insect assault on the house increased to where we had to decide whether it would be the insects or us residing in the house.

I should mention before I forget that ten years ago we had bumble bees take residence under the stoop outside the front door.  Our approach had always been live and let live for any organism living outside the four walls of the house.  That mantra took a hit when the bumble bees stung the youngest daughter, at that time of high school age, as she walked out the front door.  After the trauma of the sting, the bumble bees received their death sentence and a bee exterminator meted out their punishment.  After that incident, any insect seen inside or outside died.  Our live and let live credo turned into "make them die" once the insect assault moved inside the house.

After that initial bee assault, the insects left us alone until three years ago.  The replacement insect to the dead bumble bees were tiny ants.  The ants dubbed "pavement ants" are smaller than a paper clip. Their small size allows them to breed in almost any space.  They are very good at breeding and can manufacture an army of ants in short order under, it appears, any weather condition.

At first the ant invasion started slowly.  We found a few in the cellar. Then we found a few in the half bathroom.  Then we found a few in the main upstairs bathroom.  After a few weeks and  the initial incursion we found ants all over the house.  The ant population increased so there were significant numbers anywhere in the house.  They were especially numerous in the basement where they were coming out of cracks in the pored cement foundation.  They were in the kitchen.  They were in the fruit of the kitchen table. They even tried crawling into people's mouths as the unfortunate person rested in a chair.

I tried to curb the invasion.  I bought different insecticides from Home Depot.  The insecticides would temporarily pause their invasion but they were at invasion level a few hours after the insecticide.  I knew we were in trouble when one day I peered at our sidewalk in the front of the house and saw a mass of ants moving from one side of the driveway to the other.  The ant cluster moved food and future ants for a major attack on the house.  I tried spraying them with the Home Depot insecticide.  The insecticide killed a few ants but the vast army continued across the sidewalk unhindered.

We were losing the ant war.  We decided it was time to take the offensive and hire an exterminator. 

The first exterminator claimed extensive success in Dane County, our county, and guaranteed the ant problem would be solved.  They came and sprayed a few times in the fall.  The ants took a hit.  Little ant bodies were strewn all over the basement.  The east side floor was covered in dead ants.  The first exterminator claimed success and walked away after receiving payment.

The first exterminator was wrong.  The ants were not done.  During the winter alive ants became more and more numerous in the house until they approached their fall levels.

The next spring we decided to use a different exterminator, Orkin.  Bruce, the Orkin man, would come and spray the inside and outside of the house with chemicals every two months during the year. 

Bruce's initial sprayings were effective.  We had piles of dead ants along walls in the basement.  After six months of spraying however, the ants made a comeback and we were again seeing ants upstairs in the kitchen and bathrooms.

I thought six months of spraying should be enough to stem the ant invasion.  I called Orkin and suggested Bruce be accompanied by his manager with the next spraying.  Bruce and the manager then could figure out why the spraying was not effective.

Bruce and his manager completed the next spraying.  The manager instructed Bruce to use more insecticide and spray in areas he had missed (or neglected).  After that visit, the ant invasion appeared to be if not stopped, then paused.

For the past six months we have seen only an occasional ant in the house. These scout ants have not made it back to their colonies and we have remained relatively ant free.

The ants are still out there and have not given up on their house invasion.  I find them in large numbers climbing on certain parts of the outside siding.  I then spray them with the Home Depot concoction.  The Home Depot insecticide kills the ants if sprayed directly on the ants.  By routinely walking around the house after Bruce does his spraying, noticing when the ants start their invasion mode, and spraying some of the invasion forces, I hope to keep them out of the house.

Hopefully we can keep the ants under control with the help of Orkin, Bruce, and Home Depot.  Nothing disrupts your sleep more than having a pavement ant crawl into your mouth while you are sleeping.