Respite

After a week of some of the hottest temperatures ever experienced in the Bay Area, there are signs this morning that the blessed fog is coming back to cool things down.

There's much to be done to get ready for our next trip, which begins Friday. Packing is for me the least agreeable part of travel. My track record in this regard is far from exemplary — I have left out stuff that I shouldn't, while including items that never leave the suitcase. I've tried making lists — they don't help much. One suggested solution is to unpack, and then repack, but that's not a foolproof remedy.

This will be our granddaughters' first visit to Europe, and they are really excited about it. The older one starts college this fall. She may not be traveling very much once classes begin.

My sister and her family are vacationing in France. They have been trading residences for the last several years with French families, and they really enjoy that kind of vacation. Were my wife and I a little bit younger, we might be willing to try it as well.

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The home video I made of our cruise to Alaska with my wife's schoolmates has now reached most of them. They've been kind enough to email us with compliments. The editing part was difficult, if only because there were so many scenes that had to be left on the 'cutting room floor' that I had wanted to retain.

But there is just so much your viewers can absorb without being bored. Nice scenery is pleasant to watch, especially when accompanied by suitable music, but for the final version to be worth watching, heavy trimming is always the best solution. Amateur filmmakers like myself can often get carried away with including too many pretty scenes one after the other.

Thankfully, the charming subjects of this video effort, and the valuable help I got from every one of them, kept up the level of interest and so made the project a success.

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Today is my brother's birthday. He is in Texas babysitting his grandchildren while his physician daughter and her husband attend a conference.

Noo Yawk Pitchers

Bird Story

A couple of years ago we received as a gift from friends a pretty bird feeder of wood and acrylic. It had a spacious bin, which when filled would dispense enough birdseed out its bottom onto a wooden tray fixed to the base. Threaded through this base was a wood dowel that projected horizontally on two sides to give the birds secure perches where they could gorge their birdie stomachs in relative safety. The feeder was hung using a bent wire coathanger from a 2x6 beam above the deck, which kept the feeding birds beyond the reach of our cat.

The feeder withstood the elements well, surviving a stormy winter with hardly any damage, though a bit of mold and mildew needed to be cleaned out in the spring.

The following summer, while we were out of town, some large creature, perhaps a woodpecker or a squirrel, ate away at the wooden base, and in a matter of weeks the rim of the base had been completely eaten away, and the birdseed kept spilling over the edge.

We never discovered who the culprit was who demolished the beautiful feeder.

Our next bird feeder was plastic, and was in the form of a transparent upright tube, from which projected six little perches beside round windows through which the birds could feed. This was not as easy to fill as the wooden feeder, as the screw-on lid at the top was only about two inches wide, and spillage resulted. Also it did not hold as much birdseed as its predecessor, thus requiring a higher level of maintenance than before. Besides, it was lighter in weight and swayed a lot in the wind, though this did not seem to bother the birds, who must have enjoyed the seesaw ride as they fed.

The next winter we forgot to take the feeder down before a storm. It flew away in a high wind and ended up broken into pieces in the bushes far below.

Our newest feeder is also plastic, in the shape of a gazebo. It too is lightweight, but it seems to be rugged enough, and it can be quickly replaced if it is damaged beyond hope of repair.

I can see the birds feeding from my kitchen window. I delight in watching them, never mind that they leave their calling cards on the rail of the deck. Most of the birds that show up to feed are tiny ones, finches and sparrows mainly, but once in a while we get some big guys, like bluejays and robins, who have a hard time finding a clawhold on the narrow platform holding the birdseed. They are heavier, and the bird feeder tilts at a sharp angle when they land there, spilling seed.

What I enjoy watching particularly is the way a tiny bird approaches the feeder. It comes sailing across the backyard from the far end, from beyond the live oaks, the fig tree, the jacaranda, and the nearby Brazilian pepper tree, heading straight in the direction of the feeder. I would estimate its airspeed at about 30 m.p.h., maybe more. A tiny grey bullet.

It does not land on the feeder tray right away. First it settles on a bougainvillea branch, or on a vine-like wisteria twig, within a foot or two of the feeder. From there it hops onto the feeding tray. It pecks a number of times, looks up, looks around, pecks a bit more. Repeats the process a few times. And then, like a shot, it takes off again.

It heads back in the direction from whence it came. Its flight is not as straight as before. On its outward journey, it rises, dips, rises, and dips. It's as though, having taken on an added load of fuel, it requires a bit more wing effort and lift to stay airborne, and in a straight line.

EBay

Nearly five years ago I signed up for an eBay account.  Mainly I was interested in picking up vintage cameras and other photographica for my collection.  Then as my positive feedback counter grew with a succession of good deals, I began to seek out other things to bid on — computer software and hardware, mainly — and also to get rid of some items that I no longer needed, but that somebody out there might find useful.

With experience I developed some skill in putting together the right words to attract prospective bidders, made decent digital photos of the items up for auction, and for a period of about a year, managed to clean out from my closet a substantial amount of useful, and often pristine, items to make room for the stuff I had been successful in bidding on.

I became something of an expert packer, using bubble wrap or plastic 'popcorn' to insulate fragile items, made sure that the shipping cartons were securely wrapped with sturdy adhesive tape, and did all I could to ship them out quickly to keep the buyers happy.  For my efforts I garnered a neat blue star in recognition of the couple hundred favorable feedback comments I received from sellers and buyers alike.

The most tiresome part of the process of selling on eBay was having to ship the items to the winning bidders.  It meant I had to take the parcels down to the post office, or in some cases, to the local parcel service.  The lines at our local post office were often long, and if the parcel had to go overseas (or even to Canada) it required a customs declaration form to be completed, and sometimes insurance coverage as well.  A couple of times I miscalculated the weight of the parcel, and ended up paying somewhat more than I had charged the buyer.  For one buyer in Japan, the cost of shipment by express airmail came to equal the declared value of the item itself.

Nevertheless, during the time that I was more or less an active trader, I enjoyed the experience, and relished building a pretty good reputation among the eBay community.

Now, if only I could find an easy way to flog some of my unwanted books, without having to list them one by one on eBay.  Maybe our local library might be willing to take them, you think?

Matches

Ever take the time to examine a book of paper matches? Here is another example of a simple object which most of us take for granted, yet which displays a great deal of ingenuity in its design.

It is made up of two parts: a rectangular piece of heavy paper or card, folded in three places. The lower fold encloses two square pieces of card, each of which has been given thirteen equal and parallel incisions. The cuts are not through the entire card, so that the base is intact, and forms the matrix of the resulting fifteen matches on each card.

In the manufacturing process the fifteen matches on each card are offset ever so slightly, and this offset, in a fashion similar to the arrangement of the fifty stars of the American flag, produces two rows of matches on each card, one of eight, and one of seven. Thus in the normal 30-match matchbook, when viewed from the top of the striking tips of the matches, will show an arrangement of 7-8-7-8. (Our flag of course has 6-5-6-5-6-5-6-5-6 stars displayed.)

The two cards of fifteen matches each are held in the lower fold of the matchbook cover by means of a small metal staple the size of the staples that hold a tea-bag's thread to its label and to the bag itself, as I have outlined in a previous posting. (One generally does not pay much attention to tiny staples such as these, but they are ubiqitous, if we only bothered to look. We are indeed a staple-bound society.)

We were advised as children never to play with matches, and that is surely good advice. But we all subsequently learned how to peel off a match from a matchbook, strike its volatile head against the black sandpapery strip along the lower edge of its cover, and cause the phosphorus-impregnated head to flare into flame.

I must regrettably admit that in my time I have held that flame to the end of more than a few cigarettes and briar pipes. So much so that in the course of my travels I have collected matchbooks and matchboxes from all corners of the globe. They have become nostalgic items, like the immigration stamps on my passport.

"Foreign Correspondent"

Warm, gorgeous weather this week. Summer reading continues with Alan Furst's "Foreign Correspondent". Just about halfway through book. Tough to put down. Way the man writes makes you care about the characters. Italian emigrés in 1930s France. Settings are authentic, well-researched. Author has lived in France, knows Paris well, all the arrondissements, the bistros "Chez this" and "Mére that". Highly recommend. A while since I had a good page-turner keep me up into the small hours.

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And added to the enjoyment of a darn good read -- the heady perfume of star jasmine carried into the room on a light summer breeze.

The Poor Thing

It comes every morning, poor thing, looking thinner and thinner.  Its plastic raincoat barely covers its meager form as it lies there at the front door, begging to be picked up. Over the past several years it has gone from a robust, healthy creature filled with joy and hope and laughter, to this impoverished and skimpy shell of a being, barely able to hold up its head against the terrible forces arrayed against it.  Whatever sustains it, including the hefty price I contribute towards its upkeep and survival, has been steadily diminishing over time.  One can see the deterioration, even daily it would seem.  

It is very sad.

It is the San Francisco Chronicle, our newspaper.

Carthage, Tunisia

This is a photo of the American Military Cemetery in Carthage, Tunisia. We visited there in 2000.

User's Guides

So who looks at user's guides and operating manuals anyway?

Some of my friends have videocasette recorders that they bought a decade or more ago. Somehow they managed to get them hooked up to their television sets. Mainly their VCRs are used to play rented VHS movies, which are nowadays obsolescent (if not actually extinct). They have never figured out how to record a program off the air. If they know they will not be able to watch a favorite program at its scheduled broadcast, they will ask a friend, or a savvy younger family member, to do the recording for them on another machine.

In one case I know of, the LCD display on the VCR blinks steadily at 12:00 because the owner never figured out how to set the correct time, and had never once looked at the manual since it came out of the box.

But then who am I to talk?

I may have a shade more knowledge than the average guy of my generation about electronic gizmos such as digital cameras and camcorders and home computers, but there are other electronic appliances around the house whose many-faceted features I have not mastered. And the odds are that I probably never will.

Take our fancy-schmantsy microwave oven, for instance. We use it to warm leftovers, to cook a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, and once in a while to defrost frozen meat. Need a cup of hot water? Just nuke it in the microwave for a minute or two. These are the things most people use that sophisticated time-saver for.

But this hi-tech machine has at least a half-dozen other buttons that we never use, or don't know when to, or even understand why they are there: "Sensor Reheat", "Combination Roast", "Sensor Beverage", "Sensor Popcorn", "Sensor Cook", "Time Defrost", "Temp Cook/Hold (probe)", "Start Delay (reminder)".

"Sensor Popcorn?" Heck, we never eat popcorn. And what is "Combination Roast"? Can you actually roast meat along with potatoes, green beans, and carrots in combination in the microwave oven? Is that what that button is for?

And then on our regular oven, what is the difference between "Convection Bake", "Convection Broil", and "Pure Convection Broil"? And how do they differ from the plain "Bake" and "Broil" buttons next to them?

And take the cell phone. It's now a miniature computer, radio, camera, telephone directory, wireless Internet connection, calculator, dental appointment reminder, alarm, and God-knows-what-else all rolled up into a piece of plastic and metal not much bigger than a box of kitchen matches. You can spend a couple of days and still not figure out all its complicated features.

And the list goes on and on.

Who on earth has the time to read manuals these days?

Have a wonderful Fourth of July!

Coincidences

We may call them coincidences, or strange accidents, or even (Heaven forbid) the wild imaginings of a confused mind, but I have a suspicion that there may be more to them than meets the eye. Lately, to my increasing chagrin, these incidents have been happening with greater regularity.

Of course you don't know what what I'm talking about. How could you? I have not yet described these remarkable, oh, let's just call them flukes, for want of a better word.

Here's one recent example.

I am reading the newspaper, and my eye happens to fall on a word, an unusual proper name, Gilhooly, in a letter to the editor. A short time later, or sometimes even immediately afterwards, this same unusual name comes to my attention from another source, in an entirely unrelated context, and in reference to a completely different person or thing. In the Gilhooly example, this word showed up on my car radio that very same afternoon. The second Gilhooly appearance had absolutely no connection in any way with the first. There was also no remote possibility that there might have been an inadvertent transference in my memory from one Gilhooly to the other. It was very uncanny.

Or take last Saturday.

I was thinking about making cheese toast for lunch. (I happen to make very good cheese toast — sharp cheddar, Colman's English mustard, a pinch of baking soda, a little flour and sweetened condensed milk, one egg; all these mixed well into a paste and spread thickly on slices of sourdough bread, and then baked for six or seven minutes under the broiler of an oven.)

I got all the ingredients together and began the process. The TV was on. And suddenly it was there on the TV screen — a commercial for California cheddar cheese.

Such strange coincidences have been happening with surprising regularity of late.

Makes one wonder. What can it all mean, assuming there is some meaning?

Maybe I should quit watching Krzysztof Kieślowski movies or reading José Saramago's books?

Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia

Mondello, Sicily

Palma de Mallorca, Spain

Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia

Viva, Portugal!

Well, what d'you know!  Portugal just beat England, with Ronaldo's penalty kick, and Portugal have entered the semi-finals of the World Cup.  

Viva, Portugal!