Category Archives: Uncategorized

I would probably have to say that I have an ambivalent relationship with the ukulele but recently I have come to love it. I used to think it was a silly little instrument with only four strings that sounds like a creature from the planet Treblelina.  On the other hand, sales of ukuleles during the craze for the instrument during  the  1920’s probably enabled the Martin guitar company to survive. If the company had gone under, there would have been no D-28 or D-18 dreadnaught models, the ne plus ultras of guitars as far as I am concerned. The ukulele can be masterfully played by the likes of Jake Shimabukuro (check out his version of “Stars and Stripes Forever” on You Tube) and Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, a Hawaiian musician whose ukulele accompanied version of “Somewhere over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World” was used in numerous commercials and television shows as well as becoming a hit in its own right. The first time I heard it was during an episode of E.R. when the song is played during the death of Dr. Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards). I was ruined by that song and still am.


Our younger daughter Alyssa, the H.R. wizard, took up the ukulele recently.  She had tried guitar and found as many new players do that the strings hurt her fingers and the stretches to form the chords were too much for her small hands.  So she got a ukulele and began learning to play it. She reported last week she knew three chords and seven songs. With my father in the hospital this past week, she visited him Sunday with her ukulele and played “On Top of Spaghetti” and “You Are My Sunshine.”  I’m glad I wasn’t there or I would have been ruined again.  Ukuleles can do that to you, those “silly” little instruments.

Those of you who are skilled at home repairs, especially where plumbing and electricity are involved, might want to save yourselves some time and get down on the floor right now so you’ll be there when you start rolling around with laughter at my incompetence.

I generally don’t fool with plumbing (too wet) or electricity (too shocking) but Amy asked if I could replace a ceiling light fixture in her kitchen and install a garbage disposal.  I said sure, because how hard could either of those tasks be? Pull the old light fixture off, attach the wires to the new one, and fasten it to the outlet box (or whatever it’s called). I had done three or four garbage disposals before, and those were also not hard: put in the drain, attach the disposal to it, plug in the power cord to the convenient under-sink outlet, and run the outlet tube into the drain pipe. Half hour each, right?  Wrong–more like 16 hours total.

The existing light fixture was a four-foot fluorescent more typical of an office building.  No wonder Amy wanted it down.  First, I had to figure how to get the cover off so I could unbolt it from its moorings. There were two slot-head bolts (ugh) at either end and, even holding a cordless drill above my head, it seemed to take forever to undo the six inch toggle bolts. I got the fixture down in one piece without breaking a tube and unleashing mercury vapors. There was a ragged hole about where the outlet box would go and a pipe and strap above it. There would be no screwing the box into a joist–the nearest one was a foot away. I couldn’t use a hanger bar– the pipe was in the way.  I got a metal strap, snaked it over the bar and bolted the outlet box to the strap. Then it was spackle fest time as I filled in the gaps around the box. That of course took several applications but I got it smooth and level and wired the lamp head to the ceiling wires, hung the head, screwed in the bulbs and put on the shade.  It worked the first time!  I put a coat of paint on the unpainted area and then it was on to task # 2.


Every other disposal I have installed went into a space with a wired plugin box and a drain that came out of the wall at the back of the space. This installation had a roughed in outlet (i.e. wires in a wall outlet box) and wires in a switch box above the counter.  The drain line came in from the side of the cabinet, sloping downward as it approached the disposal site.  I couldn’t figure out what I needed for the plumbing so I took all the pertinent pipes out, went to Rice’s Hardware (a heavenly place), dumped my collection of  pipe on the counter and said, “Help! Please tell me what I need.”


I described the installation and showed them my diagram of what I had. One of the Rice brothers plucked several pieces from the plastic pipe bins, showed me how it should be configured and sent me on my merry way. I put the pipes together and other than a couple of flanges in the way, it worked fine. I tightened everything up and ran some water through the pipes, tightened everything up. In recutting and attaching the hose from the air gap to the disposal I managed to break the plastic part of the air gap so it was back to Rice’s for another. There seemed to be great interest in my project by this time. 


When I ran water through the drain, there were some definite leaks. I tightened everything up and noticed that one of the flanges was skewing a pipe joint, unsealing it and causing the leak.  The  disposal drain tube needed lengthening, so back to Rice’s I went. With the drain tube longer, the pipes were water tight.


Next step was to install an outlet and a switch. The outlet was under the sink at the back of the space, so I spent a pleasant time lying on my stomach attaching wires and putting them into the box and bolting the cover on,.  The switch went more easily.  I turned the breaker back on and threw the disposal switch.  Nothing.  I checked the breaker panel and saw the disposal breaker had thrown. I had a short somewhere. So it was back under the sink where I found a hot wire had come loose and was shorting itself out against the metal box.  I reattached it and tried again.  No luck. I pulled the switch wires out and found a wire had come loose. With that reattached, it worked!  I wished I had something to grind up but I didn’t.


The last trip to Rice’s was for a switch plate.  The crew there practically applauded when I told them it was the last thing I needed for the project.  I had worked with a couple of breaks from 9:30 until 5:30 on these two simple additions in addition to about eight hours during the week of prep time. OK, I’m slow.


Plumbers and electricians are paid well, and I’m here to tell you they earn very cent of it. Just don’t try this at home unless you have a lot of time and are full up of patience.

I did something the other day that I rarely do–I polished my shoes. Or, to be more accurate, I polished my sandals, which I wear almost exclusively in the summer.  They were scuffed and dirty, and while I wasn’t going to attend any gala balls in them, I just decided it was time to give them a shine.  So I dug out the shoeshine shoe box (appropriate, wouldn’t you say?), selected a bottle of Kiwi’s finest quick shine, complete with an attached applicator, and laid on a smooth even coat of wax. Or polish. Or whatever.  My sandals looked great!  Almost great enough to compensate for my ugly feet.(Not being modest: they are indeed ugly.) Then I was off to whatever occasion had caused me to undertake this rare activity.

I still see shoeshine stands in places like airports and train stations so I suppose that people still shine their shoes or have them shined.  I read somewhere that one could judge a man’s character by how well his shoes were shined.  I’m not sure of that as a moral index, but it does seem that shining shoes has diminished in popularity in recent years. It could have to do with fewer people wearing leather shoes.  When I taught high school, the school required that the students wear leather shoes–no sports shoes or sandals or flip-flops.  Many students had to go out and buy a pair.  I also spent a good deal of time tying ties for students who never wore one.  I didn’t attempt to do this on the student: I tied it on myself and slipped it over my head and put it around the student’s neck.  I couldn’t handle the cognitive shift necessary to tie a tie on someone else.

So, shoeshine people. professional or personal, here’s to you. As Dionne Warwick sang, “Keep smiling, keep shining!”

In our suburban town, we are not overrun with wildlife except for squirrels that steal bird food. I gave up on feeding the birds, discovering that there is no such thing as a “squirrel proof” feeder, only one that is “squirrel resistant.”  Once I hung a tube feeder on a wire suspended between two trees, forty feet away from either tree.  The squirrels went paw over paw on the wire and then hung upside down to gorge themselves on the seed.  That’s when I gave up on bird feeding. Maybe I will try again some day.

Anyhow, we do have the occasional deer sighting as do most suburbans neighborhoods in this area. There is a fox in our neighborhood, and one lady we know can see a fox’s den from her back door, complete with kits romping together.We have had possums and raccoons visit our trash cans, although their attentions were not the kind we wanted.

I had an unexpected and beautiful encounter with a wild animal the other day. One of the ways I can reach the retirement home where my father lives is to go down a kind of back street that borders a townhouse community. People from the townhouses park their cars and trucks on the side of the road, which is not paved and slopes down to the back yard of the houses.  The result is a messy looking collection of vehicles jammed together just off (or barely on) the pavement, perched at steep angles on the slope. I realize it’s the only option for parking for the residents, but it is not what anyone would call aesthetically pleasing. The cars and trucks also narrow the travel lane, so it’s a road I drive down carefully.

I was proceeding down this lane a couple of days ago when I saw something moving between a couple of the cars. I figured it was a dog, and slowed accordingly. It wasn’t a dog, though: it was a tiny spotted fawn that walked carefully on its little legs across the road. I stopped for her to cross, thinking there would be a mother doe coming along in a few seconds. She didn’t come, and the little creature looked at me for a few seconds and then picked her way across the rest of the road to vanish into some tall weeds on the other side.

Sometimes we seek out beauty in musical performances, art galleries, the faces of small children, the glories of a sunset, or the spectacular colors of autumn leaves. Sometimes we unexpectedly come across beauty, if only in the time it takes for a fragile creature to cross a road.

I suppose I should add to that title and put, “That is, if it ever rained around here.” It will come, grasshoppers.  Patience.

I’m a weather fan.  It just fascinates me and I have an electronic indoor/outdoor thermometer and a rain gauge. I know–look out Weather Service in Sterling!  The big weather dog is in the house!

My rain gauge lives on our sketchy-looking deck (but then we are not Deck People and rarely go out on it except to take out the trash and survey the vast expanse of our 1/8 acre back yard which is also sketchy-looking). My old rain gauge was I think a giveway, plastic with an ad for seeds on a flange sticking out from the tube.  The plastic had fogged up and the seed ad faded so I decided it was time for a new one.  I hied myself to a local store which will remain nameless except to say its initials consist of two repeated letters with two curves each. I bought a nice little glass gauge and installed it in the same location.

It didn’t work. How something that has no moving parts doesn’t work is a puzzlement, but the gauge basically didn’t measure rain.  We would have a heavy thunderstorm and it would sit there with about 1/10 of an inch in its little tube. I put the old one up as a comparison and after a thunderstorm Mr. Old Reliable If Sketchy-Looking Gauge registered 3/4 of an inch. Mr. Glass Newcomer showed…1/10 of an inch. Either Mr. G. N. was fixated or had too small an opening to work, except his opening was the same as Mr. O.R.I.S-L.

I took the offending gauge back to the store for a refund.  Here follows the actual dialogue with the nice young clerk at the store:

Me: I’d like to return this for a refund, please.
Nice young clerk: What’s wrong with it?
Me: It doesn’t work.
Nice Young Clerk: It doesn’t work? What do you mean?
Me: It doesn’t measure rainfall accurately.
Nice Young Clerk: Do you have it in a location where it can catch the rain?
Me: . . . Yes.
Nice Young Clerk: Does it leak?
Me: No. I tested it.
Nice Young Clerk: How do you know it’s not accurate?
Me: I compared it to a known good gauge.
(I thought we were on our way to 20 questions. I just wanted to see how many this would take.)
Nice Young Clerk: Do you want another one?
Me: No. I think the design is defective.  I’d just like a refund.
Nice Young Clerk: OK. Fill out this form.

I did get my $5.34 back. The form had a space called, “Reason for Return.”  I wrote, “It doesn’t work.  I promise you.”

I put up a nice big plastic gauge.  We’ll see how it does. I hope it works. I only have 14 questions left to go, after all.

I’ve become interested in blogs during the time I’ve been writing this one. There are, of course, people who don’t know what a “blog” is (I didn’t either for a long time so I get that)–it’s short for weblog.  (Two words crammed together is called a portmanteau.  “Chortle” is one, combining “chuckle” and “snort.”  Thank you, Lewis Carroll.)

Anyhow, I was reading the blog of Seth Godin, whom I heard speak at a teleconference last week.  Godin is an entrepreneur, author and public speaker and popularized the idea of permission marketing, whatever that it.  (You can read about it in his books and online.) Godin is one of those people that you listen to and think, “This man has truly original insights and ideas.  He can see things and life, society and commerce that others aren’t even aware of.” (He also has cool glasses.)  And then you think, “I am an idiot. I think I’ll go watch Jersey Shore or something.” (If Jersey Shore is your favorite show, I apologize. Don’t send Guido to rearrange my kneecaps.)

Here is a sample of a Seth Godin blog  for August 12 (Hope I don’t get into copyright trouble with this. I think it falls under the domain of quoting for review purposes.  Yeah, that’s it.):


Can and Should

(The title for this post is a play on the wonderful Daniel Handler series, A Series of Unfortunate Events. If you have not read any of these books, stop reading, get a copy and read any or all of them!)

This weekend was another example of my brother Ron’s saying that he would rather be lucky than good. We were lucky to be a part of two rather remarkable events.

The first was a memorial service for the late Margaret Hunt,  a local piano teacher who passed away in May. More than a piano teacher, she was a force of nature,  a driving force in the local music community and beyond.  Margaret, by turns, as the speakers at the service indicated, could be charming, infuriating, sensitive, insensitive, funny, grouchy, caring and cold, but there was never any doubt where she stood.  I did not relate well to her when I first met her: she was also loud and pushy. In time, though, I relaxed and just joked with her.  She was the primary organizer of the annual National Federation of Music Clubs festival held at our church, the largest in the state, with over 1000 thousand anxious students playing before judges and their friends and parents in the areas of piano, strings and voice.  Students earned points which translated into gold cups.  I think the ne plus ultra was the hundred point cup which Becky earned back in the day, as well as did Amy. The 100-point cup would hold about about a quart and are rather impressive. Becky’s is in a closet some place and I think Amy has hers.

Margaret’s service was delayed so that Zuill Bailey, a superb cellist from this area who is internationally known, could play. A bagpiper played outside as guests arrived. The service began with a half hour musical prelude of five vocal and instrumental pieces by Zuill and local musicians. The service itself included traditional prayers, hymns, scripture, music and a thoughtful sermon by Jeff Wilson of Bethel Evangelical Lutheran.  Friends and relatives spoke about Margaret in a series of “biologues,” giving those present a more complete picture of this one-of-a-kind person.

After the singing of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” as a benedictory hymn, Carl Hunt, Margaret’s husband, spoke, thanking those involved in the service.  Then he talked about the New Orleans funeral tradition of a jazz band accompanying the casket to the cemetery playing dirges and then breaking into an up-tempo version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” He announced the name of the jazz band from Alexandria, Mike Flaherty’s Dixieland Direct Jazz Band (I think) which came down the aisle playing “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” They were the real deal! They moved to the front of the sanctuary and played “Amazing Grace.”  Then the drummer snapped into an uptempo figure and the band launched into “When the Saints.” They led the relatives sporting parasols out of the church while the congregants waved white handkerchiefs.  The band came back in and played during the reception in the narthex while we ate some of the best New Orleans style food I have ever had. I won’t say how many crab cakes I had, but it was more than one.

The service all told took two hours but it was memorable. I had never been a part of a jazz funeral, and it was a unique experience.

Later than evening, another fortunate event was a 60th birthday party for a doctor from Richmond who grew up here. (I am not revealing his name for privacy reasons.) This was a warm and touching event, with friends and relatives present, and sharing of stories and some superb food (notice the theme of great food here). The doctor has saved countless lives and helped cure thousands of people. He has also gone on numerous medical mission trips. He is also one of the most humble people I know and a man of deep faith. He talked with me about how he depended on God and how he was still learning, realizing how little he truly knew. I thought toward the end of the evening that here is a good man. We are fortunate to know him, and we were fortunate to experience these two unique and touching events. Lemony Snicket to the contrary, good and beautiful things do happen to us.

* From Wikipedia:
A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of children’s novels (or novellas) by Lemony Snicket (the nom de plume of American author Daniel Handler) which follows the turbulent lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire after their parents’ death in an arsonous house fire. The children are placed in the custody of their distant cousin Count Olaf, who begins to abuse them and openly plots to embezzle their inheritance. After the Baudelaires are removed from his care by their parents’ estate executor, Arthur Poe, Olaf begins to doggedly hunt the children down, bringing about the serial slaughter and demise of a multitude of characters.

The entire series is actively narrated by Snicket, who makes numerous references to his mysterious, deceased love interest, Beatrice. Both Snicket and Beatrice play roles in the story along with Snicket’s family members, all of whom are part of an overarching conspiracy known to the children only as “V.F.D.”

I think cell phones are a great invention. I know, they can be annoying at times like when someone has an annoyingly loud and inane conversation in a  restaurant. It just takes some common sense (and common courtesy) to figure out when to use one. But it’s a great way to stay in touch with children or to take callbacks from doctors’ offices while running around town. I wonder how many lives have been saved in accidents since cell phones are commonly available for emergency calls.

I remember going to pick up the girls at the airport some time in the late ’90’s and being shocked at how many cell phones there were in use.  As a teacher I didn’t get out much and the world changed in the meantime.

Though I’m fairly adept with a cell phone. Amy showed me how to do predictive texting, and since both she and Alyssa prefer to communicate through texts it’s a good thing. Other features mystify me.  Occasionally my phone, which I keep in my left front pants pocket, will call a number on its own. Or it starts talking, unbidden.  Spooky. And there was the time I put two hotel room cards in succession in the pocket with my phone which damaged the cards. Magnetism is a powerful force.

The oddest thing I’ve done with a cell phone, though, is somehow take a picture of the inside of my pocket. I don’t know how to operate the camera on the phone but somehow the camera goes off occasionally on its own. I became aware of this anomaly when I was looking through the features of the phone to see how many I had no idea how to use and came across 43 pictures of the inside of my pocket in a folder under “Pictures” on the phone. (Strangely enough.) For those who would like to know what these pictures looked like, here’s an example of a picture of the inside of my pocket:

Exciting, huh? I think it looks like an empty region of outer space. (I guess there are such things. I was an English major, after all.) Or maybe it’s a black hole which will suck in the entire universe next week. In that case, I wouldn’t have to worry about learning all the features of my phone.

The fact that a picture of a small space (my pocket) looks like a picture of some of the universe reminds me of the discussions we had in college about microcosm and macrocosm.  We concluded, I believe, that at extremes there is no difference between the two. Today, I have no idea what that might have meant but then it made total sense.

Apparently there’s more room in my pocket than I thought. Maybe that’s where the single socks go to hide when they’re washed. Stranger things have happened.

Teachers spend a lot of time figuring out “learning styles,” the preferred method a student has and the most effective way a particular student can be taught. My knowledge in this area is about ten years old so if my comments are decidedly old school, please consider the ancient source. (If not the Ancient Mariner.)

I think a useful way of thinking about learning styles is the mode the student uses to learn.  There are visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners,just to name a few types. These styles are related to the theory of multiple intelligences (which Amy tells me has been somewhat discredited, but bear with me, please), which says that there is no one type of intelligence.  Traditionally, verbal intelligence has been dominant, but there is evidence that there is social intelligence, emotional intelligence, spatial, linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic,musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic and existential.  I’m not sure what some of these are, but there are a number of articles online that explain them.  Suffice it to say that most adults are visual learners who rely on verbal intelligence to learn. In choir, for example, most people who read music tend to learn by visually reading the music(quite a concept, I know).  When we as a choir  have to learn something by listening, we are out of our comfort zone.  I know I am.

But I didn’t come here to talk about that.  I came to talk about how I’m a slow learner.  Maybe a better term is “long learner.”  If I grasp something right away, I get it (duh). If I don’t, it takes me a long time to figure it out, but I have German persistence in my genes and I keep at it until I get it.  Or not, as in the case of statistics or cricket.  Not going to happen. I tried.

Playing guitar is a good example of long learning.  I am not gifted musically and have to work at it.When I first took up guitar at age 14, I was a long learner compared to other people I know.  I taught myself by watching and listening to other people play when I could and using books. Another method I used was to play records (those 12 inch vinyl disks that we played on turntables) at 16 2/3 rpm, a speed on some turntables for recordings for the blind.  Playing a 33 1/3 record at 16 2/3 rpm slowed down a song by half and lowered it an octave. I would  play along with the record that way for a while and gradually work my way up to playing the song at normal speed. I wonder what I would have done if I had been learning during the days of CD’s.

Anyhow, I bopped along learning licks for a couple of years and then I plateaued and didn’t learn much for the next 48 years. It’s OK, I’m a hack guitarist and enjoy playing just for the sake of playing.

There was one figure from a Gordon Lightfoot song that eluded me until last week. I had tried to play it for decades with no success. It comes at the end of each verse of “Song for a Winter’s Night,” a beautiful song that Lightfoot wrote about the speaker being away from a loved one and thinking of him/her while the snow falls outside. Although it is full of wintery images and sensibilities, he wrote it in the summer during a thunderstorm in Cleveland.  Go figure.

Anyhow, I couldn’t get the turnaround at the end of each verse.  The song is in A, generally played in G capoed to the second fret. (Guitar players, you know what I’m talking about.) The bit sounded like it was minor, but nothing I tried worked.  Then I saw it was a sample online video lesson. It was so simple I don’t know why it eluded me for decades: Dm7, C, D, G. Wow. I got it.

Like I said, I’m a long learner. It may take me a while but I’ll get there.  Maybe this is something to remember as those of us who work with young people try to understand how they learn and help them learn.

I’m not what anyone would call a deal-maker. I usually pay list price for what I buy, although lately I’ve become more aware of the wonders of coupons. Now, Becky and my brother Ron are all over deals.  I think Becky has almost walked out of stores in which they  paid her to take the merchandise (Only a slight exaggeration.) One of her best buys was a $250 ring she bough at Kohl’s  for $1.41. The ring was on sale, there was a 15% Night Owl Special, she had a further charge customer discount of 15% and used two gift cards and a partial one to come up with the final price. (Do not try this yourself unless you are a consummate shopper such as Becky is.  You could be seriously injured in the  attempt.)

Starting last Monday evening, though, I had about a 24-hour run of deals that fell into my lap. In no case was I looking for bargains, but there they were anyhow.

It started Monday evening when we decided to rent The King’s Speech from Red Box.  It is an amazing movie, and you should stop reading this and go see it right away.  You’ll thank me later. Anyhow, I logged on to Red Box to reserve the film and the checkout indicated I had a credit and that the movie was free.  I have no idea why but I was good with it. ( We rarely see films in the theater and catch them later on DVD.  The exceptions are the Harry Potter movies, which we saw in the theater except for 7.1 which we watched at home to fill us in before we saw 7.2 in the theater.  It is an engrossing and moving film. You should stop reading this and go see it now. And now that I think of it, the only other movie we have seen in the past ten years on the big screen was Seabiscuit. Another good one.)

A friend had asked me Sunday if I were interested in a couple of free tickets to a Nats game in September.  Her office was going and they had a couple of extras.  The deal included a free hot dog and drink. Yes, I was interested! She sent an email confirming the deal Monday morning and we were good to go.

Monday afternoon I went to wash my pickup since I was planning on selling it to Car Max the next day if the price was right (it was, and that was another deal).  I pulled into the car wash place and a couple of guys were working on the control box that money is deposited in.  One of them told me they’d have it fixed in a couple of minutes.  After about ten minutes, the guy came over and told me to go through, that the wash was free since I had to wait.  Score!

Then I went over to Home Depot to get some materials to do some electrical work on the house. I got a current tester to try to avoid the shocks I usually get when I work with household current. There was a nice yellow one on sale for $6, discounted from $22.  Deal.  When I took it to the register, it rang up as one cent.  The checker said it was a secret discount.  Yay!

My next stop was Lowes to check on insulation for an attic insulating project. They had denim insulation (doesn’t make you itch like a man on a fuzzy tree like fiberglass insulation does)on  clearance for less than half-price! I got ten bales of R-19 and was a happy fellow.

Later on that afternoon, Becky sent me a link for a Groupon coupon (I know, it rhymes) good for a 50% discount at a nice local restaurant.  We liked the idea so much we got two! Again, I was doing nothing but sitting at the computer, fat, dumb and happy.


After all this, I felt as if I should buy a lottery ticket, except I am cheap and don’t gamble.  I could invest in the stock market…or maybe not. I am trying to stimulate the economy.

My brother Ron says he would rather be lucky than good. I had about a twenty-four hour period where I was both. I hope you are, too.