The Curmudgeonly Professor

Midway Rose and an Extra Daisy: Photos of the Day July 14 2008

Kemp's Washington Mushrooms: Photo of the Day July 20 2008

I don't think I've run this before. My nephew Kemp sent this photo of mushrooms in his yard, a plant species that rarely shows up in arid Utah. He didn't say if these are edible.

Saturday is Petunia Day: Photos of the Day July 19 2008

Check out Pandora.com

My sister Ann and her daughter Laura, my niece, have alerted us to the great site Pandora.com. Type in a favorite song or kind of music, and Pandora puts together a radio station for you with a string of songs. I tried it and I am amazed, and not a whole lot amazes me any more. Try it!

A Useful Book to Read: House Lust by Daniel McGinn

Earlier I posted a preliminary entry about Daniel McGinn's book House Lust: America's Obsession With Our Homes (New York: Doubleday, 2008). Now I have finally finished reading it and will offer a few comments. This book would be useful to anyone who has ever bought a house, built a house, thought about a house, remodeled a house, bought a house as an investment, bought a time share, bought a second home or a retirement home. In other words, everyone would profit from this book.

I thought the main strengths of the book were focused on the growing size and expanding features of new homes, as well as the remodeling fever that motivates people to buy old houses and fix them up. The transition of a home from a utilitarian shelter with the capacity to provide basic family needs to an over-sized, often unaffordable, trophy home to prove the high status one has attained in the world can, to some degree, be blamed for at least part of the current banking and mortgage crisis.

Here are a few quotes from the book.

In 1950 the average American home measured just 983 square feet . . . But over time the average has crept steadily upward--and by 2005 . . . the average newly built U.S. home measured 2,434 square feet. One in five new homes now has a three-car garage. . . One in four has three or more bathrooms. (pp. 16-17)

In commenting on someone looking around his neighborhood, McGinn writes:

. . . he sees more of his small-house neighbors copying the things they see in bigger, more expensive homes. They're adding multigabled rooflines and exterior columns . . . they're installing exotic landscape beds in the middle of the yard and built-by-hand stone walls. (p. 26)

McGinn quotes one builder as saying:

We're not selling shelter. We're selling extreme-ego, look-at-me types of homes. (p. 34)

The writer quotes the Oxford English Dictionary as defining a McMansion as:

an ostentatiously large house, hastily constructed, with minimal attention to building quality and architectural detail. (p. 35)

Follow the author's journey through the home remodeling boom and the growth of home oriented television programs, and read his discussion of the extent of marital discord and divorce from the trauma from extensive remodeling projects. Review his discussion of the risks of "home-flipping" in attempts to make quick money by buying fixer-uppers and turning them for a quick profit after some speedy cosmetic surgery.

McGinn does his homework, even studying for the real estate license exam and passing the licensing exam to become a licensed realtor. After passing the exam, he concluded:

. . . I knew nothing about the basic skills of realty: how to set the listing price of a home, how to negotiate the selling price, or how to write up a formal offer. (p. 191)

I had the feeling, especially during the later chapters, that I would really like more information on topics like time shares, second homes, and retirement homes. However, for a survey work by an author who did his homework by spending time with people from every phase of the home industry, this book is a valuable starting place. It should be read by everyone who is caught up with the idea that their home must be bigger with more gables, a swimming pool, more exotic landscaping, more bathrooms, an industrial strength kitchen for warming up carry-in pizza, and all of the signs and symbols of "having arrived", no matter the financial risks and potential disasters waiting around the corner. Some day we may wake up and realize that it takes something more than a McMansion to make us happy and that the risks of trying to acquire and live in one may actually not be worth the effort.

Red Blossoms from my Sister Liz: Photo of the Day July 18 2008

Why Do The Beetles Cross the Trail?

Now that the Curmudgeonly Professor no longer has to prepare lectures every minute, or dust off old ones at the last minute, he is free to meditate on the mysteries of life. It occurred to him one day that an important mystery surrounds the question: "Why do the beetles cross the trail?" One day, I noticed two large beetles, each starting from his or her own side of the trail, allowing for gender differences in the beetles. As each meandered to the center of the trail, I wondered if they would stop and visit when they came close to each other. But no, they met within an inch of each other and each just kept going in the other direction.

This event made me wonder: Why didn't the beetles stop and converse in the middle of the trail? Why didn't one of them ask the other "Why are you leaving that side of the trail?", or, "What do you expect to find on the other side of the trail?" And then, as each beetle continued to the side opposite from each started, did it occur to their beetle brains to consider: "Maybe I was just as well off on my own side. Maybe things aren't any better on the other side. Maybe there are no greener pastures."

All of which caused me to wonder, for example, why don't the people who live in Provo and work in Salt Lake move to Salt Lake? And vice-versa? Why does the traffic clog I-15 just because human beetles think they have to cross the trail, so to speak? I moved many times during my career because I thought the grass would be greener. Unfortunately, I discovered that troublesome colleagues, meddling deans, and a few nasty students inhabited all universities. I could have saved a lot of money and strain for my family if I had just stayed put to begin with. But that would have meant living out our lives in Laramie, Wyoming where the wind blows 365 days a year and the summer lasts five or six weeks every year. Something always comes up. Maybe I should have just stayed on the farm in Penrose Wyoming where I grew up and lived on a self-subsistence acreage raising turnips, rutabegas, and a few goats. But I will never know whether the two beetles ever thought they were better off for crossing the trail. And I have never really figured out whether I ever found any greener pastures for all my looking.

A Hot July Morning on the Jordan River Trail: Photos of the Day July 18 2008

Before I set out on my walk this morning, I wondered if I could find anything to photograph since the vegetation has mostly turned brown and sere, the blossoms have almost all disappeared except for a few hardy specimens able to survive without water in the 90 plus degree heat. But I read somewhere that you can find stuff to photograph anywhere you look, so here is what I found this morning.

Snails were on the trail, or as I learned in French vocabulary on the bus from Falls Church, VA to downtown DC, escargot. Not sure I could handle the escargot on the menu.

Cattails were out on the ponds

Milkweed is "blooming"

Paying the price for trying to survive in July

I decided that it really is true: You can find beauty anywhere and everywhere in nature, even in the sere, brown days of a hot July day.

The Curmudgeonly Professor Has a Wisdom Tooth Extracted

Since the Curmudgeonly Professor's first foray into medical analysis and reporting in his epic essay "The Curmudgeonly Professor Has an Angiogram" was such a huge success, and helped so many people learn how to do angiograms, he is now following up with a sequel to assist those who need to have wisdom teeth extracted.

In all, I have had five teeth pulled. The first one was during high school when I crunched down on a popcorn hull and a tooth broke off. No one did implants then so I have had a hole there for 127 years. Number two was a wisdom tooth which was memorable since I had it extracted the afternoon of the reception for our Golden Wedding Anniversary six years ago, leaving guests wondering why my dear wife ever married someone like me. Numbers 3 and 4 were replaced with implants, where they take a long screw and somehow attach a crown to it and presumably you won't have to have three root canals and any more toothaches where these fake teeth are located.

The extraction of current interest was set in motion when the crown on my left rear wisdom tooth fell off. I stopped by my dentist's office and he glued it back on again with Super Glue and it fell off again an hour later, minutes after he called me to ask how it was doing and, of course, I said fine, since it hadn't fallen off yet. We were leaving for a week for our family reunion so I had no choice but to leave it. During the week, apparently I continued fracturing and breaking off the remnants of the tooth. By the time I returned, the tooth was mostly below the gum line, and I went through five days and five nights of total unmitigated pain and misery before I could get in and have the remnants removed.

Memorable as these days and nights were, nothing could equal the excavation with back-hoe, sledge hammer, and jack hammer required to dig the little pieces out. I explained to my dentist, who had previously been our neighbor for over 20 years before we all moved, that I hadn't spent one minute when I wasn't cursing him during the previous five days. He felt really, really bad, even though he is a fairly liberal and radical thinker, contrary to the typical Utah County sanitized political views of the right, and, therefore, usually entertaining to discuss political matters with. Since I have sensitive nerves, huge doses of novocain or however you spell it hadn't deadened the nerve so he had to deaden the tooth finally with a plunger down through the nerve cavity or some such place where I actually did let out a small scream. Then the tooth was broken off in several places and excavated and I was excused. I am a huge coward when it comes to stuff like this.

My dentist did call me a couple of times afterward to see how I was feeling, which was thoughtful. I told him I still hated him. Yesterday I felt like a dump truck had collided with my jaw. Today I felt good enough to accompany my wife to the grocery store, which she always appreciates. She sent me to the back of the store for sour cream, and I came back with Fritos and sesame melba toasts as well, additions which did not please her.

If all goes well, I should be back to my normal curmudgeonly self in short order and will certainly keep you apprised should I require any more trips to the dentist. I hope this discussion will be of help to someone. I have made every effort to be clinically accurate, although the American Dental Association may be offended. If so, remember I am a mere economist and make no pretense at being a dental expert and hereby issue a disclaimer for any and all misrepresentations. All I could write about is what I know and remember and I have tried to do that as accurately as I could.

The Doldrums of July

Where did the phrase "dog days of summer" come from? Here we are in mid-July. Forty-seven days from kickoff in the first BYU football game. Larry Miller, the Jazz tycoon, has been sick. I could hardly see the mountains through the gunky smog when I went on my morning walk. The weather remains hot and dry, no sign of rain since June 11. Nothing to watch on TV. The Presidential election campain [misspelling intended] continues. Innuendo, criticism, who can be commander in chief, moving toward the center, becoming more Bush like, age, inexperience, troops out of Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, terrorists, suicide bombers, deficit, taxes, schools, promises, promises, denials, denials, he said, you said, we heard what you said, why deny it, parse the sentences, pick the bones. Etc. OK to eat tomatoes again today according to wise Uncle Sam. Try it. Oil prices drop because, now hear this, economy expected to get worse. Market two-day strong showing. May be able to postpone moving in with our kids. Wait and see if it all goes away again tomorrow.

Leno retiring after 2009. Play with his three warehouses full of cars. A funny joke occasionally, but never a Johnny Carson. Emmy Awards announced. Never heard of any of the programs or performers mentioned. Big deal. No movies to go see. Hellboy II not exactly my cup of tea, as we say in Utah. Crummy reruns on TV. Golf dull without Tiger, but never watched it with him, either. Not hot on beach volleyball. Or poker.

Supposed to be a retirement condo community. Folks across the street running some kind of college dorm with three or four college kids and same number of extra cars, etc. Leave car parked on street in no-parking zone. Forgot my 20% discount coupon when went to Staples this morning for ink cartridge. Expires tomorrow. Battery dead in MacBook Pro. Never did work. Should have whined two years ago. New one costs $129. Salt Lake's Deseret News laying off 34 people, ending business section, who knows what else. Advertising revenues not there any more. Will they omit my New York Times crossword puzzle? Just my luck if they do. Matlock rerun this afternoon a crummy one. Charlie Gibson on 5:00 o'clock news always says "I hope you had a good day." Whatever.

Other than these items, things going pretty well.

July Blossoms from the Heber Valley: Photos of the Day July 17 2008

Midway Blossoms: Photos of the Day July 16 2008

Making Lists of Stuff to do Before You Die

The category of books that list anywhere from 101 to 1000 things to do before you die seems to be expanding. To check, enter "things to do before I die" on Amazon search and see what you come up with. One author even felt it necessary to tell us 100 things we should NOT do before we die. The movie The Bucket List has also popularized the notion we should make a list of stuff we should do before we die.

Some problems, of course, exist in making these lists and working our way through them. The most obvious issue is that we never know for sure when we are going to die. So if we get to the 980th place to see before we die and then pass away, so to speak, have we failed to meet our goal, and what difference will it make if we don't? One author has listed 2001 things to do before we die (Dane Sherwood). I can't even get through a five-item to-do list in less than two years, much less tackle a list of 2001 items.

Such lists might serve a useful purpose in getting us off our duffs and trying a few new things and experiencing a few new adventures to make life more interesting than just watching Regis and Kathy Lee. Older people seem to become increasingly reluctant to do anything different, go anywhere different, or to move outside their comfort zones in any way. For one thing, they keep busy seeing their cardiologist, oncologist, urologist, ophthalmologist, gynecologist, gastroenterologist, other ologists, and dentists, leaving little time for 2001 other things to do.

For right now, my own tentative list consists of the following:
1. Getting the wisdom tooth that has been aching for five days pulled, finally, tomorrow. Until that happens, I don't really care about any other lists of stuff to do.
2. Learning to take better photos.
3. Learning to write more effective prose.
4. Avoiding cleaning out the garage for another year.
5. Finding the remote shutter release for my Canon camera.
6. Getting a family reunion photo book finished for my family for our reunion just finished.
7. Read more books.
8. Avoid cleaning up my den until after we go back to St. George in November.

I might think of a few other things if I put my mind to it. For the most part, we remain focused on our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and seeing whether our tomato plants are actually going to produce tomatoes this year. Maybe I should buy the 2001 things to do list so I can see what I am missing out on. For right now, I can hardly keep up with what I am doing already. Maybe I just need to be doing something totally different.

My Latest Book Order

In keeping the spirit of my post yesterday about buying books, here is my latest book (and DVD order) from Daedalus, my favorite book remainder source.
1. Engineering an Empire. History Channel DVD. Quote from the Daedalus catalog:

Engineering an Empire examines the most sophisticated civilizations in history through the lens of their astounding engineering feats. . . This boxed set includes 12 documentaries that explore such ancient cultures as those of Greece, the Aztecs, Carthage, China, the Persians, and the Maya, as well as the more contemporary empires of Britain and Napoleon.

2. Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People. by Mark and Delia Owns.
Excerpt from catalogue entry:

A helicopter lands in the remote wilderness of Africa in order to refuel. In this silent landscape, the white man and woman who step out are approached by a group of towering, graceful Masai warriors who greet them with curiosity and good humor. . .A few pages later, they awaken in their tent to find two black-maned Kalahari lions sniffing them over.

3. Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog by Ted Kerasote. One reviewer writes:

Merle's Door is the best, most utterly compelling translation of dog to human I have ever seen. A terrific book, a superb book, I can't think of a single other book that conveys the love of a human for a dog so well.

4. Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation by Peter Bernstein. I've almost ordered this book numerous times. I've read Peter Bernstein before, and he is a terrific writer. The Erie Canal is considered

the event that would catapult New York into its place as one of the greatest cities in the world and thrust the United States into the center of the emerging global economy.

5. A Writer's Life by Gay Talese. As reviewer Trevor Butterworth writes,

A Writer's Life is a timely reminder of literary craft and what it really takes to produce writing worth reading.

6. Death in the Orchid Garden by Ann Ripley. A mystery for my wife. She reads lots of serious stuff but she loves mysteries, and I try to find mysteries she otherwise wouldn't find on the bestseller lists.

I'd like to think that in some way I will be better off if I read these books and watch the DVDs on engineering the world. I'll comment on them as I read them, and, meanwhile, you may see something here that intrigues you and may want to order yourselves. If you do, please send your comments in to my blog and we'll compare notes. Oh, and one of the best things about Daedalus is that they have a fixed $5.95 shipping cost, so your average cost per book dwindles down lower and lower the more books you buy.

How to Become an Expert Blogger

After seven months of blogging, whatever that is, the Curmudgeonly Professor feels compelled to offer his distilled wisdom on the whats and wherefores of the activity. I have bought several books about blogging but have studiously avoided reading any of them. I also receive several email daily blogging hints and I delete those as quickly as they come on. Meanwhile, I acknowledge the fact that I could probably learn something about blogging if I did pay attention to the advice of other successful bloggers. One of the problems is that I often don't like the kinds of blogs some of the so-called experts themselves are doing, so I figure, why bother taking their advice?

I am awed by some of the blogs that generate hundreds of thousands and even, in some cases, millions of page views. Some of these blogs are useful and constructive; others make extensive use of potty language and material I would consider offensive, even with a fairly liberal point of view. Others are popular, but seem overly trivial and useless to me. I know that successful blogs are supposed to have a "niche". Apparently that is why quilting blogs attract quilters; tatting blogs attract tatters; stamping blogs attract stampers; hog raiser blogs attract hog raisers; and so forth. You get the picture. Apparently the Curmudgeonly Professor blog attracts only curmudgeons, and there seems to be a confessed shortage of those types around the world. Either that, or people are simply dishonest in imputing to themselves a cheerier disposition than they actually have.

Some blogs, I have noticed, are strictly clip and paste blogs, with a teaser line and a link to an article. I do a few of these blog posts when I find information I think would be of interest or of value to some of my readers. These blogs are, of course, much easier than blogs composed mainly of original written content. It takes a lot of work to write original content, and then wonder if you should just delete the whole thing and start over again. Fortunately, I have never been at a loss for words and seem to be able to make stuff up on the spot without sitting and looking at my computer screen for fifteen minutes and wondering what the heck to say next.

I note that blogging experts say you should find a "voice" in your blog. I guess you do that by just continuing to write until your real personality starts seeping out between the words and sentences that you post each day. I think the only dangerous thing here is trying to be someone that one is not, because then the language becomes phony. Our voice should be whatever voice we have; if it works, fine. If it doesn't, find something else to do besides blogging or just keep writing and searching until you find a skin and a voice that you are comfortable in.

For now, I remain comfortable in posting lots of photos, partly because I believe the photos tell stories themselves and are worth giving more than a passing glance by studying them until finding a message or a feeling that emanates from them. Then I enjoy writing Curmudgeonly Professor lectures on critical issues of life. Beyond that, I'm content to continue a stream-of-consciousness blog, even though I know that by focusing on a narrow technical issue or single social or political issue I could up my page viewer counts. I'd rather have fewer page viewers and write and post what I want to write and post. Eventually, I may discover my niche. Or, I may move on to another interest. For now, I'm comfortable with what I'm doing.

The Joys of Buying and Taking Care of Books

Unfortunately, or fortunately, I have a weakness for book catalogues, book reviews, book ads in magazines, bookstores, book clubs, reading groups, piles of books everywhere, bookshelves that have run out of room, books that I have read, books that I haven't read but plan to read, and, most of all, new books to add to the mix. One of the most egregious things I ever did when I retired and moved into retirement condo living was to follow the advice of "experts" who said the key to successful retirement was to simplify, simplify, simplify. That meant getting rid of countless books. Some were fine to get rid of, but I have regretted every day getting rid of others that I wish I still had. I ran out of bookshelf space last year, so I ordered some new ones. Somehow the seller sent the wrong ones and then told me it was cheaper for them to send out the new ones and for me to keep the old ones at no extra charge. "Well, why can't the delivery guy who brings out the new ones take the old ones back to the store, " I innocently asked. "Well, because we have a different contractor for picking up stuff than the one for delivering stuff and it costs too much to have the other contractor pick up the other stuff." Net result: I ended up with a total of five unassembled book shelves, two of which I put together and which are now full, and three more which remain in their boxes in the furnace room waiting for me to find some wall space so I can assemble them.

I always figure that books are an innocent and relatively inexpensive vice or addiction. I can buy all the books I can think of in a year for less than what one cruise ticket would cost me. I don't buy guns, fishing gear, hunting and fishing licenses, booze, flat-screen TVs (yet), organic fruits and vegetables for $5 a pound (though maybe I should), iPhones, iPods, and my wife frowns on my trips to Costco because, according to her, we don't need anything. That logic misses the Point: The Point is, how do you know what you need until you see it at Costco? For sure. So I buy books. My wife should be happy because I buy her numerous new books every year and she has a huge stack of unread books and a shelf full of books she has read in the storeroom. And both of us are bonding with our Kindle which is always handy when you see something and don't want to bother going to B & N or waiting several days to get something from Amazon.com.

Books can cause marital rifts when left in disorderly piles. My wife waits for as long as she possibly can, biting her tongue and remaining sweetly calm, until, occasionally, my arrangement and scattering of books has once more gotten out of line. The most critical place for book storage is on the lamp table between our two recliner chairs. I usually start out with one book that I am currently reading, gradually add several other books that I definitely plan to read immediately, add a couple of issues of the New Yorker, several issues of Time, Newsweek, and Business Week, and then throw in three or four partially completed crossword puzzles. By then, we can scarcely see each other. But wait, as the infomercial ads always say to hook a reluctant customer for green bags that will keep your veggies from going bad, there is more. Add to this a Kleenex box and a couple of dozen ball point pens that have been hauled to the lamp stand one at a time. My wife thinks she is entitled to enough room for a coaster to put her water glass on, which does cause some minor dissension from time to time. Now include a few items of junk mail, some book bills, a few book club monthly announcements with many enticing new possibilities, a bowl that once had some grapes in it, and an issue of the Powell Tribune that I have been trying to read to my wife for several days so she will appreciate what is going on in my home town.

I have never heard of a couple going to divorce court on grounds that one or the other spouse was an inconsiderate, disorderly, and messy distributor of piles of books around the house. I like to think that if book orderliness is my worst vice, then I should be on fairly solid ground. Once in awhile I clean off the lamp stand, down to the bare wood. But, alas, dear reader, one at a time, once or twice or three times a day, the books start piling up again. I remain oblivious to any immediate threat or objection to such messiness, but sooner or later a crisis is reached. So then I start over again, once more.

Scenes of Provo Canyon: Photos of the Day July 13 2008

Bridal Veil Falls

The tunnels near the Sundance turnoff. The Provo Canyon road, until recently, was a narrow two-lane highway. The four-lane highway took years to complete as foes of the expanded road like Robert Redford opposed the expansion.

The Curmudgeonly Professor Offers Reasons Not to Blog or Read Blogs

According to "surveys", most people still do not blog, do not know what a blog is, could care less about learning what a blog is, have no intentions of ever writing or posting on a blog, and have no intentions of ever reading someone else's blog, even if that blog is written by their spouse or other close friend or family member.

The main reasons according to the Curmudgeonly Professor's own inner sources of hidden knowledge that people do not blog and have negative intentions about blogging may include the following:
1. People think they spend too much time on a computer at work anyway and try to eliminate and avoid any unnecessary or non-job related computer activities.
2. People think blogs are silly or trivial, which, admittedly some are, but the new world of blogging is providing vast extensions of information highways into continually increasing and incredible areas of value.
3. People would rather not keep in touch with their families and don't want to be bothered looking at photos of kids, grandkids, siblings, and others and reading updates of family news.
4. Some are not interested in learning anything new since their current stock of knowledge and information is deemed more than sufficient to guide their daily trips to Wal*Mart and their five-hour evening seances in front of the TV.
5. Many do not know how to turn on a computer and have no intention of learning how to use one before they die, preferring to spend nearly 50 cents per letter and make a trip to the mailbox costing $10 for gas rather than send an email.
6. People may be wholly caught up in their own lives and their own selves and could care less about anyone else or what anyone else is doing.
7. Even people who may have computers may not have an internet connection and do not intend to get one or figure out how to use one if they do have such a connection.
8. Many people think they have nothing to say, nothing to write, that nothing of interest happens in their lives, and that even if they did occasionally have a germ of a thought they may feel they couldn't possibly write a sentence or two on the computer.
9. Some people are worried about what other people will think of them if they read what they write on blogs.
10. Some people are concerned about privacy and do not want any thoughts, ideas, shreds of information, photographs, to go beyond their front door.
11. People are too busy with other activities, such as Sodoku, crossword puzzles, drinking two cases of Diet Coke a day, yakking on cell phones, quilting, tatting, knitting, writing novels, reading classic literature, working three jobs to avoid foreclosure on their homes, going to Wal*Mart and Costco, watching Fox News, and other exciting events of daily life.
12. Some people don't like the sound of the word "blogging" and think that it refers to something nasty.
13. Some people wouldn't do anything someone else suggested that they do whether it is reading or writing on blogs, losing weight, drinking less Diet Coke, or planning one's work and then working one's plan.
14. In general the idea of taking advantage of the enormous learning and social adventures of blogging are just too overwhelming for some people to contemplate, thus preferring to stay mired in the 18th century with slates to write on and horses and buggies for transportation.

The Curmudgeonly Professor reserves the right to edit, expand, rewrite, clarify, amend, and otherwise repair and fix this list to aid those who need justification of their own aversion to blogging and to provide excuses such people may never have even thought of to use when people ask other people "Do you ever blog?" Amazingly, some people do not even have a clue what that question means or what a blog is or what blogging is. But sooner or later, everyone will catch on and then none of us will ever get anything else done except check 2-300 important blogs per day, and tend 10-20 of our own blogs. Will we be better off? The rule remains: moderation in all things.

COMMENTS

I get the feeling that you are referring to some people in particular who won't get with the program...I enjoy the exchange of ideas, info, pics and running jokes with people I would never have met otherwise and I insist that it can be good clean fun even if I am from Baltimore.

Posted by: molly | July 13, 2008 at 01:09 PM

Right on Dwight. You hit all the nails on the head. Blogging is like going to a head doctor (I can't spell Psych------), you have to disclose yourself to others even if you aren't sure who the "others" are. That is the beauty of it. Love it, love it, love it. You are truly one of a kind, and that's a good thing.

Posted by: Evetta | July 13, 2008 at 10:57 AM

Two Bachelor Buttons, A Red Poppy, and Some White Daisies: Photos of the Day July 12 2008

Discovery of the Day: Buy Your Kid a Dallas Cowboys Recliner Chair from Amazon.com

Bursting out of the "why didn't I think of that first?" category of discoveries comes the wondrous offering by Amazon.com of pub couches and recliner chairs for the NFL Eagles, Bears, Bills, Steelers, and Cowboys. Apparently that is as far as they have gone. I detect a bit of discrimination here in selecting only these teams, but perhaps this venture is a market test. I can see vast possibilities for this venture. Put your kid in a $159.99 Cowboys recliner chair and make him an obnoxious Cowboys fan for life. Just think of the possibilities when couches and chairs for all NFL teams are available. If your household has fans from two different teams, two different couches or several different recliner chairs will be necessary, thus upping the incredible marketing success of this venture. If you haven't blown your tax rebate check yet, here is a definite outlet for your itchy urge to get rid of this money before blowing it on frivolous expenditures like breakfast cereal and gas.

Then, to let our imaginations run wild, next will come couches and recliners for college football teams, soccer teams, NBA basketball teams, and Pop Warner teams. You will need to build an extension on your house so you can switch couches and chairs as the seasons and games change. Who would want to be seen sitting in an Eagles chair when the Celtics are back in business? Locally, no BYU fan with his or her Cougar Blue couch and recliner with Cougar Logos would want to be seen in a home with a bright red U of U couch and recliner. If someone did have such a piece of furniture in his or her home, one would certainly not want to sit on it. This whole idea could rejuvenate the economy, creating hundreds of jobs in Mexico and Guatemala to make cheap chairs and recliners.

I don't think we have even yet begun to see the vision of this scheme. We could have red, white and blue couches and recliners to show our patriotism. We could have donkey logos for Democrats, elephant logos for Republicans, apple logos for Mac users, and Fox News logos for Fox addicts. I don't know when I have felt so inspired about a new product. But so far no Utah Jazz recliner or chair has been announced so I'll have to put everything on hold. See the possibilities here on Amazon.com.

The Blood Family Reunion: Midway UT 2006

Just to prove that the Curmudgeonly Professor wasn't just loafing this past week, and for curiosity seekers who might wonder what a family reunion looks like, here's a preview. I'm posting this in response to Michelle's comment about being a posting slacker even though Michelle, with a 4.00 graduation average in psychology, is an LA Lakers fan which one would think would benefit one with a superior level of analytical ability and decision making capacity leading one to be a Celtics fan or any non-Lakers team fan. One must learn to forgive egregious shortcomings in a family. I'll post many more reunion photos on the Summer Mornings blog, linked at the right. For now, I'm still trying to remind myself just what it was that got me so inspired to become a blogger in the first place since all I feel like doing now is nothing. This feeling is definitely evidence of the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, or stated otherwise, "too much of anything makes you tired of it."

Michelle, she of the Lakers persuasion, is in the last row, just to the right of the little boy in the white shirt who is taller than everyone else. I am the only geezer in the photo, and my viewer count will likely fall off when viewers realize that I should have photoshopped myself out of the photo. My wife and I keep wondering where all these people came from.

Pansies from Midway: Photos of the Day July 11 2008

Signs of Life

I see my page view count has reached the incredible number of 45 by noon today, which bloggers whose page counts run in the thousands per hour will surely scoff and tee-hee at, but after dropping perilously close to zero during my week's absence, 45 looks as promising as a sprouting weed in my three-foot-long garden. Questions, I am certain, are running through the minds of my miniscule but faithful blogging audience. What will he do next? Has he gone off his rocker? Will he start posting offensive political comments which, even if 100% true and correct, will offend anyone who doesn't agree with them, true or not? Will he just quit blogging and buy TV rerun CDs like the first three seasons of Andy Griffith and sit and watch them all day? When will he actually start posting useful information, which is supposed to be the cornerstone of any worthwhile blog that brings in millions of viewers every month, or day, whatever?

Or maybe I should try "24" reruns. At our family reunion, the house had a large-screen home theater, and many persons disappeared to watch "24" by the hour and into the wee hours of the morning. Is there something about "24" that I have been missing? Perhaps if I start watching it, my blogging audience, now up to two or three dozen, may have to wait another month or two before I get inspired to resurrect the Curmudgeonly Professor and get him to stop watching biased TV programs like Countdown with Keith Olberman, an obviously over-the-top program with enumerations of Worst Persons in the World. Blessedly, we are only about six weeks or so away from the opening of the college football season and BYU is ranked, depending on who does the ranking, among the top 15 or 20. That ranking is immaterial as long as BYU beats Utah in November; otherwise, life will hardly be bearable to have little kids wearing U of U hats going around chanting anti-BYU yells for a whole miserable and intolerable year.

Just to prove that minimal, anemic signs of life are possible, though not necessarily probable or even certain, here is the progress of my tomato plant among the petunias. My wife will be grateful beyond measure when I pluck vine-ripe tomatoes off this vine, unpolluted with real or fictitious worries of e-coli, crank up my Vita-Mix, and make fresh salsa for $52 per cup, thus continuing to amortize the initial cost of my industrial strength blender.