Caught in a “Jam”

As I have stated countless times in the past that I am not growing old gracefully!  One of the frustrations is that I am not as sharp and observant as I used to be. This malady manifests itself all the time when I am grocery shopping. I always make out a meticulous shopping list, since if I relied on my memory, I would surely have an empty cart when I check out. What really is ironic is that sometimes I carefully check off each item on my list as I put it in the cart and when I get home, I find I still forgot to get an item on the list. Due to Murphy’s Law, it is more often than not an essential item on a new recipe I was planning to try that day.

Another malady is when I have a coupon for something on sale I end up getting the wrong thing. The other day I had a coupon for Welches jam and jelly. I always use grape jelly since I don’t care for grape jam. Well, when I got home I noticed I had 2 big jars of Grape jam! I am slowly persevering as I slowly use up the jam jar contents.

As long as I am using the example of grocery shopping, I shall cite yet another frustration. I always scrupulously avoid getting anything in dented cans. I always thoroughly inspect each can for any dents. Well, upon returning home when I put canned things away, I invariably find a dented can!

Oh well, such is life for a “Senior Citizen”, (that sounds much better than an “elderly man”). At least I can find some comfort as a result of playing semantic games.

Mike

“E” Convenience

As a life-long prolific and voracious reader, I have read thousands of books. Over 99% have been nonfiction.  Most of the reading has been from various libraries. In earlier years, my personal library consisted of hundreds of books. If I had purchased all the books I have read over the years, I would have a bigger deficit than the U.S. Federal deficit. Well, maybe not quite that much, I told myself millions of time to avoid overusing hyperbole.

My reading has accelerated at a significant rate over the last few years. One factor is CLEVNET. This is a service through my local library that allows me to find material from over 32 area libraries and have it delivered to my local library. All it takes is a few mouse clicks and my material is on its way. E Books are even more convenient. All it takes is 2 mouse clicks and the E Book is instantly downloaded to one of my Kindle Readers. What a wonderful service for obsessive readers!

The second thing I have utilized over the last few years is copying and pasting text from any web site. I paste the text into a Word Document, and then go to one of several web sites that can convert the .doc into an E Book file. I just down load the converted doc. to a Kindle file, then up load it to one of my Kindle Readers. Very convenient indeed!

It is wonderful to have the technology available to feed my insatiable reading appetite at no cost!

I forgot to mention yet another service. I can download any one of thousands of free E Books via Amazon Prime Lending Service and keep them on my Kindle for as long as I like.

I also have a method to down load any video on YouTube and other sources for free and play on my T.V. Perhaps I shall elaborate on this subject on a future post.

“Ain’t” technology grand!

^^^Mike^^^

Search for the Missing “Relative”

I have noticed the trend these days is to make unnecessary, inconvenient changes to things that have worked from their conception. This more often than not, results in inferior products after the change. The ubiquitous trendy phrase used these days for any product  is “New and “Improved”. In the majority of cases I’ve found is that it may be new, but certainly not “improved”. To me it results in, “One step forward; two steps backward”.

I could give a long list of aggravating examples; however, in the pursuance of brevity, I will give an example of the first aggravation I observed early this morning.

All the weather forecasters used to give the relative humidity. That was something that I could always relate. A low relative humidity means it would be comfortable to go outside on a hot day. A high relative humidity means that it becomes more “sticky” on a hot humid day, thus resulting in profuse perspiring.

These days, for some unknown reason, the weather forecasters have replaced relative humidity with the “dew point”.  I still cannot relate to that in a pragmatic and practical way. The official meteorological definition of “dew point” is, “The atmospheric temperature (varying according to pressure and humidity) below which water droplets begin to condense and dew can form.” To me this means nothing. I simply cannot empirically relate to that! That is not germane as to how “sticky” it will be on a hot humid August Dog Day afternoon.

Now, I have to go to the NWS web site that still lists “relative humidity” so I know what kind of a day it will be as to comfort level. I have no idea as to why they have omitted the humidity. Given my wary nature, I conger up some insidious clandestine government conspiracy to confuse us and limit summer outdoor activates. You never know these days.

I shall not even attempt to broach the subject of “Heat Index”, which is yet another pedantic esoteric term to further cause confusion! Then there are the phony “old school” radar sweep arms when they show the Doppler radar screens. I do not believe there are radar sweep arms in Doppler. Very distracting indeed! Then there’s the….. Oh, never mind, I’m starting to get irked. Bring back the old ways that worked fine.

My plea: Come on T.V. weathermen, break free of the trendy herd mentality and think for your selves. Bring back relative humidity forecasts for those of us Baby Boomers!!!

///Mike\\\

“Foiled Again!”

My scrambled brain has resulted in all kinds of uncanny behavior my whole life including a wacky sense of humor and general bizarre behavior. This, of course, is based on my well-known diagnosed Bipolar/Hypertension/Hyper activity/Anxiety Complex/, etc. manifested my whole life. The bottom line I am told is that I am unique and a “one of a kind”. When they made me, they threw away the mold and beat up the mold maker.

Alas, I have longed to be “normal” with a normally functioning brain. One time I was so desperate to achieve a state of normalcy, that I convinced one of my psychiatrists to investigate the possibility of a brain exchange/implant. After extensive research, my Dr. did indeed succeed in setting up an experimental first of its kind brain exchange/implant. Since it is illegal to exchange human brains, they planned to exchange my brain with a monkey’s brain.

Everything was all set until PETA somehow found out about it. They filed a court injunction to prohibit a brain exchange between a monkey and myself. The judge ruled it was a clear case of animal cruelty. 😱

()Mike()

“Suspended” Information

Among the countless mysteries of life, of which I have no adequate answers to, now and then I do indeed find the answers to things that have mystified me over the years.

One thing that has always mystified me is why older men always wear trousers with their belt line so very high up over their waists. Or why do so many old men wear suspenders. When I was a kid and watched I Love Lucy, I was always fascinated why Fred Mertz’s trousers were always so high up on his waist. I have also noticed this in other older guys over the years.

 

Ironically, over the last few years as I age, I have been wearing suspenders more and more. I have at last solved this one mystery based on my own anecdotal evidence. I finally figured out why older men do this or if they use a belt, to pull the trouser waist as far up as possible. As men age, they tend to develop larger abdomens and lose their hip contours. That has happened to me. Consequently, no matter how tight I buckle my belts, my jeans tend to slip down past my waist due to gravity. Another reason I wear suspenders more and more is that over the years I have an inverse continuing cycle of losing and gaining weight. This is synonymous with my anxiety levels that come and go depending on how the brain chemicals decide to flow.

I trust this rare useful Blog entry that has answered one of the big mysteries in life that perchance others have wondered about as well.

@@@Mike@@@