MAYBE NEXT TIME

I sometimes wonder what happens to scientists who almost discover something. I mean that often several people are doing the same research and occasionally one of them hits the jackpot. But I wonder about that other guy who almost made the great discovery. I think I may be that guy.

Yesterday we were eating corn on the cob. Now I don’t recall ever being taught there was a correct way to do this so I assume nibbling the kernels off the cob is an intuitive thing. But I paused and happened to notice I was making my way along the corn by starting at the left and moving towards the right. A light went off as I thought that I also read that way. That is, I start at the left side and read across the page until I get to the right side and then I go back and repeat this.

I thought it might be a worthy project to look into this further and see how Jewish people eat corn inasmuch as I understand reading Hebrew requires you start at the right side and read towards the left. Surely this could stand investigating. Visions of a Nobel Prize, or at least a nomination, flashed through my mind.

But alas my hopes were quickly dashed when I looked across the table and noticed my domestic partner, who happens to be Chinese, was eating her corn the same way I was and everyone knows Chinese reading goes from top to bottom instead of side to side. I was forced to conclude my theory of the relationship between reading and eating corn on the cob needed more study.

I think there’s a song that goes “Maybe next time …”

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
July 12, 2007

I ALMOST HAVE A PROBLEM -- ALMOST

I received a jolt the other day. I went to see our family doctor on a relatively minor matter and he saw my lower legs. My legs have a vein condition that makes my legs look much like a contour map of Colorado. The doc said, "I see you have Venus Disease."
Yike!
Venus Disease?
I had never heard of that. So of course I went to the internet.
I brought up Google and typed in "venus". This is what came up

Egads! I had a disease that was going to grow breasts. To make things even worse, my arms would fall off and I wouldn't even be able to touch them. What a predicament. The guy in the picture obviously suffered from the same disease and he couldn't even pull his shirt up. I assumed that was because of the arms thing.

As I did more research I think the doctor meant veinous, that is pertaining to the vein. In other words I think the doctor should have said, "vay-nus" instead of "vee-nus" and scaring the hell outa me. Oh well, everyone can't be perfect. Only a few of us.

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
July 3, 2007

PS After I wrote this I double checked and the word pertaining to veins is really "venous" and it is pronounced "vee-nus". So I guess what they say is true -- "nobody's perfect."
Not only that, but reading back I thought, "Who says "Egads" anymore?

INFINITY RAZOR -- DO NOT BUY IT !!

I did it again. I saw the TV ad for the Infinity Razor. It said "The Infinity Razor is the last razor you will ever have to buy." Several key words here. Think about it - no one HAS to buy a new razor. Except me. I've bought every type razor invented and I think there is something deep inside me that makes me HAVE to buy new razors.

Let me give you my evaluation of the Infinity Razor. It's a cute looking thing. All of the positive comments stop here.

The first time I used it I compared the comfort level to that of one of my "Use once and throw away" razors when I was using it the second time. Not very comfortable and not very close but maybe that's the new look.

The second time I used it I could not make it through the whole shave. It was pulling hairs out rather than cutting them. Halfway through I switched to a disposable razor and it glided through the rest of the way.

I suppose some men take the offer to refund the purchase price (less shipping and handling $8.95) but to me it's not worth bothering with. However, I will take each opportunity I can to urge anyone to NOT BUY THE INFINITY RAZOR even if they offer a free carving knife, which apparently can cut though metal cans but for some mysterious reason has trouble with meat.

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
June 26, 2007

DOES ONE GET WISER WITH AGE?

This is interesting.

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens is planning to cash in on the wind energy boom by building the world's largest wind farm in West Texas.

If things go as usual this proposed wind farm will be, as most things in Texas are, huge and will generate enough electricity to power a large percentage of the Texas homes. The problem will be getting the electricity to them.

Well, here’s an idea.

Most of us are familiar with high power electrical lines. These carry electricity long distances. Usually they are either on high towers or underground. Why not make short towers about 3 or 4 feet off the ground and string them along the border between Texas and Mexico?

It would seem like a better idea than those foolish fences we keep building and people keep climbing over. Not many people will climb over a high voltage wire fence.

Just a thought.

Here is some serious advice.

I saw a television commercial advertising the “Infinity Razor – the last razor you will ever buy.” It is supposedly made of special steel that will hold a sharp edge forever. They even show it shaving sandpaper and then a man’s face.

Of course I bought one. I don’t think there ever has been a decent razor ad I didn’t follow up on. In August of 2004 I even wrote a blog about this obsession I have. Click here if you're interested

So yesterday I tried it and I sort of agree with what they advertise. You might use this razor forever if you don’t mind shaving with a dull blade or if you want to shave sandpaper.

Now that I think of it, they never did day it was a great shave – just that it would be the last one you will ever buy. They must have meant you’ll never buy another one of these.

But I probably will buy the next gadget that comes along.

Oh yes, they also throw in a carving knife in a cardboard sheath. Printed on the outside is, “You never have to sharpen this knife.” That’s true. Think about it the next time you look at your carving knife. You don’t HAVE TO sharpen it. Only if you want to slice something.

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
June 22, 2007

HAPPY DOGS

I hardly seems possible that it's been well over a month since I last posted a blog here. This time I have a better excuse than "the dog ate my blog." It has been really busy around here and, of all things, the source of a great amount of it was our Shih Tzu dog named Jake.

Even though I seem to lack the genes needed to be a pet lover I do feel this guy, Jake, is a pretty special dog that somehow gets everyone to love him. In fact, recently, a Veterinary Nurse who was looking at him said, "He's so cute I could kiss him right on the lips." I thought that was going a bit farther than the stage I am at now but nonetheless it was kind of a cute thing to hear.

About a month ago Jake developed a slight limp in his right forepaw. Not much I thought but apparently enough that a visit to the vet was called for. This led to some medication and some advice to keep him quite for a while. There was not hint given as to how to keep him quiet and apparently it wasn't explained to Jake either. That night we were at the 24-Hour Emergency Veterinarian's Office, as he seemed to be in more pain. You didn't know there was a 24-Hour Emergency Veterinarian services? Oh yes, if you are willing to pay. From previous experiences we also were aware there are Animal Dermatologists and we learned there are also Animal Ophthalmologists. I wonder how they do that "Read the chart thing" and how do they do that "Is this one better or is this one better?" thing. It was at that office we saw a magazine as advising us of the availability of a "Pet Psychic." Hmmm.

However, it was that Emergency Veterinarian who did suggest the problem was actually in Jake's neck and suggested X-rays at our regular Veterinarian in the morning. Sure enough it was and several hundred dollars later we were on our way to a city about an hour's drive north of here where they have a special animal hospital that does surgery. After arriving there and meeting with that Veterinary Surgeon it was determined he did need spinal surgery and he should have an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) only they didn't have the MRI equipment so we headed out for another hour's drive to get there just before they closed.

We left there and returned to the vet surgeon with a CD of the images. That was two images at $700 each but we probably could keep a copy of the CD to watch on evenings we wouldn't be able to afford to do anything else. Surgery was scheduled for the next day and we drove the last hour to home.

Of course we drove back the next day to be sure to greet Jake when he came out of surgery. That was a wasted trip except we did see he was still alive. The next day we did take him home but only for a day. The poor dog was in such distress we were unable to get his medications into him so we took him back and left him there as a hospital patient for the better part of a week.

He now is home but still not out of the woods. He sleeps a lot and when we tries to walk he has trouble. I describe his walk as looking like a drunk walking on slippery ice. He falls down quite a bit but each day seems to get better. Our trips back and forth to the hospital are finished for now and our bank account is severely bruised enough that we no longer dream of building a girls school in Africa like Oprah did.

Which finally brings me to the point of this blog. I was talking to my eldest daughter who has had a lot of experience with animals. She told me something that I thought was quite profound and was the main reason I wrote this thing. She urged us not to be too concerned over details and reminded us that things which seem important to us might not be important to Jake. Then she said, "A three-legged dog is just as happy as a four-legged dog." That phrase kept going over and over in my mind and I even thought it would make a great title for that book I'm going to write someday. "A three-legged dog is just as happy as a four-legged dog." I think we could all learn from that and if we could apply it to ourselves it's just possible we might just be as happy as Jake even if we can't do all the things we want to do.

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
June 16, 2007

WOW!

I wonder if there is such a word as "wower". If not there should be. You know, like, "Wow, look at that!" Whatever "that" is would be a "wower". Well, we recently had a genuine wower.

Where we live is near the vast Pacific Ocean and often look out to see water as far as the eye reaches. Ironically, on land, water without the salt is in short supply and we need to be really miserly when it comes to water usage. The water company provides us with incentives to do so by increasing the per unit cost as the amount used increases. Our monthly water bill usually hovers around 20 US Dollars, which is about 14.7 Euros or 27.3 New Zealand dollars or 2400.91 Japanese yen.

We don't consider this too bad unless we were paying in Japanese yen, which would involve a lot of counting. However we did get a bit of a jolt when we opened last month's bill. The total for the month of April was 408.92 US Dollars, which is about 300.63 Euros or 554.43 New Zealand dollars or 49,090.44 Japanese yen!

I suppose we should be grateful we don't live in Japan but on the other hand, if we lived in Great Britain we would only need to pay 205.12 British pounds.

So, you may wonder how we got to use that much metered water in one month. That puzzled us too and we were about to run a test to see if there was leakage some place when we remembered an obscure event. Our house has an artist's studio attached to the garage. It has a small bathroom. We don't use it often but last month someone used the bathroom. We had forgotten it has one of those "Jiggle the handle to stop the water" features and the water ran there for a few days. That put our water usage up to 30,000 gallons or 113,562.35 liters for that one month. That's a helluva lot of water. $408.92 worth to be exact.

Since we don't want to move just to find a better currency system we have decided to stay here and in the future we will try to remember to "Jiggle the handle."

An expensive education indeed. Wow!

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
May 7, 2007

PS.I just checked the dictionary and found the definition of "wow" to be "Used to express wonder, amazement, or great pleasure." I want it clearly understood that my "wow" only expressed "wonder and amazement" and in no way should be interpreted to mean anything near "great pleasure".

WHICH WAY IS IT?

Recently I’ve read that using the fluorescent type light bulb uses less electricity than the standard incandescent bulb we are so familiar with. Formerly the fluorescent light was mainly in the shape of a straight tube but now they make bulbs shaped like a corkscrew, which can be screwed into any ordinary light bulb socket. They are available everywhere. One article I read was advocating replacing our incandescent bulbs in the home with fluorescent ones. Since they use much less electricity, less electricity needs to be generated. Hence this would create fewer atmosphere-polluting emissions. The article sated, “If only one bulb was replaced in every house in the United States the reduction of emissions would be the same as taking 6.5 million cars off the highways.”

Impressive indeed.

Then about a week later I read, “If only one bulb was replaced in every house in the United States the reduction of emissions would be the same as taking four hundred thousand cars off the highways.”

Wait a minute! Is it 6.5 million or four hundred thousand cars?

Either way it’s a significant amount but my point is where is the data backing this up? I’m sure there’s a valid point in there but not backing up the statement with valid information weakens it.

I had the same problem with Al Gore’s book, “An Inconvenient Truth”. Many statements made: very little scientific evidence citied.

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
April 25, 2007

GETTING OLDER

There is a small and almost unnoticeable change in the heading of my blog. Those of you who are sharp-eyed regulars will have noticed I no longer say, “You get to see the workings of an 83-year old brain that doesn't seem to view the world as most others do.” As of now it says, “You get to see the workings of an 84-year old brain that doesn't seem to view the world as most others do.”
I made it! Monday, March 26th, was my eighty-fourth birthday and all is going well.

It’s also Jen-Chi’s birthday. Incredibly she and I have the same birthday but she is one year older. For those of you who might be math-impaired, and you know who you are, that means she turned 85.

In my wildest dream I never thought I’d be sleeping with an 85-year old woman but then again, I doubt her fantasies involved an 84-year old man.

Faced with the problem of what one buys for an 85-year old woman who has everything I came up with an idea – flowers.
I bought her some roses.
85 roses.
One for each year.

Here she is trying to hold the bundle together.

Judging by her enthusiasm I’m led to believe the choice of gift was a great one.


The Old Professor

Carmel, CA

March 27, 2007

MY DAD WAS SMART

My father was a cop. I was the son of a cop. I was always reminded of this. We didn’t have father-son conversations very often but a newspaper item the other day reminded me of one of the rare ones we had. I suppose the term “father-son conversation” is not quite accurate. My dad talked and I listened.

One particular time he and I were riding in the car for some reason. He expressed his opinion on what kind of a career his son should have. Here again, that’s not quite accurate. What he said wasn’t exactly an opinion it was something like, “I’ll never let my kid become a cop. You see nothing but the seamy side of life.” He further went on to rule out being a fireman because “They have too many heart attacks due to those bells going off in the middle of the night.”

So, you can imagine my surprise when, some 70 year later, I saw a headline in the newspaper that proclaimed, “Study Shows Firemen Prone To Heart Attacks.” I’ll be damned. My dad knew that 70 years ago.

As I read the article I found his conclusion was correct but, according to this study, the reason was different. The scientists concluded the cause often was lack of proper exercise and poor dietary habits. They rightly observed the fact that firemen are sometimes called upon to do extremely strenuous physical tasks and therefore need to be in excellent physical condition.

It was nice to know that 70 years ago it was possible to reach valid conclusions even without the latest scientific data. I’m guessing that’s how they managed to raise kids without Dr. Spock and all the other child-raising experts. Nice going Dad!

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
March 23, 2007

ANOTHER ONE OF LIFE'S MYSTERIES

I seem to hear things like this a lot. Someone might say, “I was going to the ATM machine but I forgot my PIN number.”

As common as this is it doesn’t make sense. When we use letters to represent words in an acronym such as ATM we really are using a shorthand method of saying “Automatic Teller Machine”. Also the acronym PIN means “Personal Identification Number”.

That means a person who said, “I’m going to the ATM machine but I forgot my PIN number.” really is saying “I’m going to the automatic teller machine machine but I forgot my personal identification number number.”

Why would a person want to say “machine machine” or “number number”? It's another one of life’s mysteries I probably won’t live long enough to figure out. Oh well, I really don’t care care. It doesn’t make any difference to me me.

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
February 22, 2007