The Curmudgeonly Professor

Accomplishments of the Curmudgeonly Professor in mid-March 2013I

Since the year is nearly one-third over by the end of March, and since today is about the middle of March, I thought it appropriate to inform my faithful blog followers of my accomplishments and activities of the past week, as follows:

• I have quit my blog several times, thinking I was tired of posting stuff after nearly five and one-half years.  Besides, all anyone does 24 hours a day now is stay chained to their iPhones and iPads and have forgotten that they are supposed to talk to other people and not spend all their time texting little cutesy messages.  Then I took a batch of spring photos and didn't know what else to do with them, so here they are.
• I lost my car keys yesterday when we went to lunch and then to the St. George art museum which puts on annual display of pink and white flowering blossoms.  When I got home, I realized I didn't have my car keys and had a fit, so to speak.  How could I lose my car keys?  I have never lost my car keys in 80 and one-half years (almost).  So back to the St. George art museum, not expecting to find the keys.  Upon entering the museum and mentioning keys to the ladies at the desk, they gleefully produced them before the words were out of my mouth.  I had dropped them while trying to untangle my seat belt with a few impolite suggestions, get my huge camera in the car door, and kick the junk out of the way so I could get in the car.
• Of course, my camera battery died in mid-photo shoot, whereupon I said we might as well go home.  At which time I spent an hour trying to find my camera battery.  When my wife came home, I told her of my plight.  She came in my "den", picked up some papers, picked up the box beneath the papers, opened the box, rummaged for a moment (I had previously searched self-same box numerous times in previous hour of disgust), picked up a Canon battery charger, and cheerfully said, "Would this be it?"  Of course it would be "it."  This was the third time this week she found something instantly I had been searching for forever and asked "Would this be it?".  Now my camera battery is charged and I can go take some more photos of pink and white flowering trees.
• I have spent about 2,000 hours trying to figure out how to format Microsoft Word 2013 manuscripts into Kindle publishing format.  I bought about seven formatting manuals on eBooks from Kindle and found myself more confused than ever since everyone had slightly different suggestions and some left out rather egregious lapses in moving ignorant people to the next step.  I have given up this project several times.

Other than the above, I have watched numerous episodes of the Duchess of York, which is hard to understand because of the accents, taken out the trash, given up on the Utah Jazz since the Jazz seem to have either stopped playing basketball or they have forgotten how to play basketball, watched BYU go down in flames in the first round of the West Coast Conference tournament to a team that had hardly won a game all season, and thought about cleaning up my den.  The latter task remains in the contemplative stage.  Meanwhile, my wife keeps hounding me to do my share of the taxes for this year, which would probably take me 15 minutes, max, but which is so daunting a task I can hardly bear the thought of doing it.  I hope your year-to-date has been more productive than mine.  Have a nice day.

Downton Abbey and Then Some

Apparently everyone in the entire world has been watching the BBC Super-Soap called Downton Abbey.  I have found that boring conversations turn animated and protracted merely by mentioning the words "Downton Abbey."  Here is what I have learned from the first three seasons:

• The aristocracy spends a lot of time eating magnificent cuisine in ties and tails and splendid dresses while the kitchen help, which prepared the magnificent cuisine, is eating gruel down in the kitchen.
• When not eating splendid meals, various members of the aristocracy and the kitchen staff engage in petty intrigues, attempts at revenge, and loud arguments.
• Lady Mary, having deposed the poor Turkish guy early in the whole story, now has lost poor Matthew in a bloody auto accident so he can be resurrected and act on Broadway.  Was Lady Mary really so boring that Broadway was more appealing? 
• A very elderly lady with a sharp tongue was the star of the whole thing.
• Poor wimpy Lord Grantham apparently hadn't studied agricultural economics, or perhaps had also skipped tabulating debits and credits, and was about to sink poor Downton Abbey at which time they would all have to move into a thatched cottage in the village and take their meals at the local pub or B&B.   Of course, Lord G had already sunk poor Lady Cora's fortune on a kaput Canadian Railway.  Some time and heated arguments ensued before Lord G acceded to Matthew's superior insights and realized they needed to "modernize" or go to the poorhouse.  Fortunately, Lord G gained this revelation before poor Matthew met his bloody demise in time for the final credits for Season 3, leaving vast audiences in tears and ticked off that the Brits already have the next series and we viewers in the colonies must wait many months to be edified.  Too bad we can't come up with something to equal BBC here in the US of A.
• Other than presiding at dinners and hunts and appearing imperial and patriarchial in grand living and dining rooms, I was never clear on exactly what Lord G's duties were or what he did in his spare time when not eating or presiding.
• Lady Cora didn't appear excessively worried when Lord G informed her he had flushed her fortune down the creek, but Lady Cora rarely expressed herself in any emphatic tone.
• Poor Lady Edith.  Left crying at the altar by a rich guy who could have supported her in splendiferous fashion, she is now left to ponder her romance with Rochester, whose insane wife is locked away.  Oh, I forgot, this is Downton Abbey, not Jane Eyre.
• After marching poor Bates around the jailhouse yard for most episodes in Series 3, he gets a reprieve and is able to return to Downton Abbey, apparently no worse for nutritional deprivation during his lengthy wrongful incarceration. 

Meanwhile, the Sunday supplements today have counted up the number of marriages among the cast of our very own soap, The Young and the Restless.  Downton Abbey doesn't even come close.  Meanwhile, we start the countdown clock for next year's triumphant return with many months to construct our own version of what we think will or should happen

 

The Curmudeonly Professor Returns After Immersion in New Technology

For those faithful blog followers who have noticed a lapse in posting on the Curmudgeonly Professor blog, I am pleased to inform you that I have not passed away into the Great Blogosphere Beyond.  Here is what I have been doing:

• I opened my new computer, HP ENVY dv7, 1T, 1080 non glare, etc., etc.  My first inclination was to send it back to Shanghai.  But I got brave and took it out of the box and plugged it in.
• I more or less figured out Windows 8 which is a long cry from MSDOS, which we required students to learn in the 1970s so they would be up to snuff, technology-wise.  Lots of pretty pictures, awesome full-screen blowups of my photos, mysterious doodads galore.   I have long had an aversion to reading instruction books, which ordinarily are written by people who haven't tested their own instructions and leave out the one or two important steps that will enable you to do what they expect you to do.  My brother in law, who teaches English at Utah Valley U, has written a manual on technical writing.  I wish they would read it at HP.  By clicking at random and uttering a few plaintive pleas and expressions, I was able to get started.  So far, I don't really like the touchy-feel of this new keyboard, but I'll have to get used to it.
• I transferred about 150,000 photos from my old saturated hard drive to my new hard drive after two abortive messups.
• I finally got Photoshop CS6 installed after urging it politely for two days to do my bidding or risk extinction.
• I uploaded several other software programs that I frequently use, like ACDSee Pro6, Topaz filters, and QuickMats digital matting software.
• I installed Word 2013 which I thought was supposed to be installed by my Shanghai techie friends (which, by the way, I appreciate their efforts in making my computer). 
• I transferred my eBook on weight loss from my old clogged computer to my new computer and miraculously converted it from Word Perfect to Word with the punch of a button.  Cool.
• On some days, I did nothing.  Such as watch episodes of Doc Martin, The Duchess of York Street, and express doubts that I ever wanted to sit down at this computer again.  My wife thought I was being a bit cowardly.
• I frequently expressed the opinion that I was too old and defunct to learn new technology and that I should stick with a yellow pad and a ball point pen.  Many people don't think old people know anything or can do anything anyway.  So why surprise them?
• Now that I am more or less up and running, so to speak, I will try and rejuvenate myself as well a this neglected blog.
• By the way, the new computer has  super-duper mouse which can work on any surface, including gravel.

In My Eighty-First Year: Six Things I Wish I Had Learned in College: Learning is a Lifetime Quest

Here we are talking about my undergraduate degree in agricultural economics from the University of Wyoming in 1953.  My undergraduate degree was basically a science degree and, indeed, at least one of my classmates used his undergraduate ag degree to apply directly to medical school and was admitted.  The majority of the classes were science--zoo, botany, chemistry, a dozen or more agriculture classes in agronomy, animal husbandry, feeds and feeding, etc.  Since my interests were broader than ag science, I crowded in four classes in American History, a class in sociology (which I loathed), two required classes in poli sci (which I loathed, but mostly because of a tyrant prof who criticized me in front of the class for the fact that the window blind pull cord broke when he asked me to fix the blind), several courses in journalism (I loved writing and journalism, but could never have graduated in four years had I changed my major), and all of the required courses in education so I could become a high school vocational agriculture teacher.  I thought the education classes were ridiculously easy and lacked substance.

I was lucky to graduate in four years, since I had worked 30-40 hours a week all through school to earn enough money for Van Camp's pork and beans and other culinary delights, buy my books, and take my girlfriend to the movies now and then.  After we married my senior year, my grades sharply improved and I made all A's spring term, except for one B.  Fortunately for that, since grad school reviewers looked at those courses and the grades, overlooking pitiful performance some quarters when I basically just gave up and plodded on in a stupor.

But, over my life, I have regretted not being able to expand my course work to pick up the following subjects:

• Classical literature.  I know nothing about the classics.  I am trying to learn a bit in my old age, but my knowledge of the classics is pathetic.
• Literature in general.  My only literature consisted of a few measly, anemic, required readings in freshman English.  I learned about literature at the Blue Front in Ann Arbor while working on my Ph.D. at Michigan.  The Blue Front was a disorganized paperback and newspaper store where I went to pick up the Washington Post and the New York Times.  The paperback books were partly in racks, but many were in boxes randomly scattered on the floor.  One day, I began sorting through the boxes on the floor and found a copy of Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again." and I was hooked forever.  Literature became my tranquilizer for studying economics and trying to pass exams and orals.  Thank you Thomas Wolfe for opening the pores of my brain forever, regardless of what the critics keep saying about your book.
• Math.  My math education was pathetic.  Economics, at the graduate level, is based on mathematical competence.  I had high school algebra, high school geometry (which I goofed off in and didn't learn anything), and another course in college algebra.  My math education wouldn't measure up to my grandkids' eighth grade math competence.  And here I was competing with my close friend and fellow Ph.D. classmate who had an honors undergrad degree in math from Swarthmore.  All my college and teaching and research career, I suffered from math inadequacy.
• Art and art history.
• Though I crammed in four courses in American History, which I loved, and partly because the professor, Gale McGee (who went on to become U.S. Senator and Ambassador to the Organization of American States), was as masterful a lecturer as I ever had anywhere in college, I knew nothing about ancient or European history or world history in general.
• Logic and philosophy.  Profoundly ignorant on these topics.

So, college kids, don't begrudge your general ed requirements and don't goof off when you take classes in art history, world and ancient history, classics, math, literature, logic and philosophy, and other social sciences.  You may want to become an architect or an engineer or a physician or a farmer, but too many people have never learned how to think critically, how to evaluate evidence, how to discover reliable knowledge and information, and how to avoid living their lives from a fountain of fantasy and ideology.  But, remember this:  You have a lifetime to learn, and you can make up deficits in your knowledge by launching forth at an early age on a lifetime quest for expanding your horizons, opening new windows and doors, learning to think and reason objectively, and have something inspiring to accomplish besides watching TV.

In My Eighty-First Year: My New Life with an iPad is Terrific, and the Evolution of Modern Technology

I have always tried to keep up with emerging technological trends.  In grade school, we used stick pens with pen points dipped in an ink bottle and made numerous trips to the pencil sharpener.  Then I went through a series of wonderful Parker 51 pens.  Then some genius invented the ball point pen and life was never the same.  As years went by, ball point pens got cheaper and cheaper until they became freebies.  The best free ball point pens at any doctor's office in Utah are at my wife's nephrologist's office in St. George, bar none.

When I was in high school, I spent my hard earned sugar beet hoeing money on a Royal portable, the pride of my life.  I used the case one Christmas to stick under my long sock, which I had cut a hole in, so I could maximize Santa's bounteous stocking gifts.  I was rewarded with a typing case lid full of coal.  What a mean Santa!  Then, eventually, my wife and I graduated to a gleaming, magnificent, perfect Selectric II IBM typewriter on which we typed my doctoral dissertation, numerous times as it turned out since you couldn't make a correction on page 25 without retyping the entire blankety-blank 300 pages once more, unlike today's coddled and spoiled students who simply plink the computer screen for a correction and then go drink a caffeinated Diet Coke.

Then we used IBM punch cards and a forest of keypunches and card sorters and hauled boxes of punched cards across the U of Michigan campus to the IBM 650 computer which took up an entire sacred fortress in a building far removed from where I worked.  And then, one night, lightning struck the computer at 4:00 a.m. and I had to start my string of calculations for 30 variable multiple regression equation solutions all over again.  Next was the mag card typewriter.  Then next was the itty-bitty Apple computer with a toenail's worth of storage, and then the matrix dot printer, and then the beached-whale sized computer monitor, and, eventually, my MacBook Pro, now years out of date.

But then, oh blessed day, my family took pity on me on my 80th birthday and came up with a brand spanking new, top-of-the line iPad and my life has not been the same since.  I thought my first generation Kindle was cool several years ago when I bought it for my wife, who read one book on it, chucked it aside, and opined "I'd rather read a real book."  Then I bought the new Kindle Fire on pre-order when it first came out, a sucker for new stuff and full well-knowing a new version would be coming out shortly.  I love the Kindle Fire.  But, oh my gosh, the iPad.  I will never do another moment's vacuuming, cooking, or cleaning because it will take me approximately 10 years to download all the aps and photos I can crowd on to this little sweetie.  The ease of reading email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, news, etc., is incredible.  The only complaints I have are (1) the screen is a bit too sensitive for midguided finger touches and swishes around a bit too freely, and (2) I am not a proficient typist on a small keyboard, though I know you can buy another keyboard for the iPad to make it easier.  So now, I lean back in my new recliner my wife just bought me since the old one was defunct, press on the iPad, and I am lost for an infinite period of time.

I just wonder when they will bring out the new iPad and what features and advantages it will have over the new one I have.  But at least I have a better iPad than any of my kids for the moment and I no longer have to watch Matlock reruns.

Ten Things the Curmudgeonly Professor has Learned in 80 Years

Old people are supposed to be saturated with wisdom from their long years of learning things by trial and error.  Here are ten things the Curmudgeonly Professor has learned in his 80 years of life:

1. Electricity and electric lights are preferable to kerosene lamps.  Electricity came to our little valley where I was raised when I was seven.
2. Northern tissue is preferable to old Monkey Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogues and Collier's magazines.
3. We got just as excited listening to Jack Armstrong the All American Boy on the radio as any youngster gets watching TV today.
4. You can get by without indoor plumbing.  I left home in 1950 at the age of 17.  My parents did not get indoor plumbing until a few years after I left.
5. You can get by without a telephone.  My parents did not get a telephone until a few years after I left home.
6. It takes a long time to hoe ten acres of sugar beets.
7. Learning to drive the Model A Ford at the age of 13 was a lot of fun.
8. Two hours a day was a lot of time to spend riding the school bus from Penrose to our school in Powell WY.
9. It was hard to bring my tuba home on the school bus so I could practice on it by playing to the cows.
10. Love, safety, and fun are more important than anything invented after 1932 or anything you had to go without.

The Curmudgeonly Professor Turns 80

Yes, dear reader, the Curmudgeonly Professor has become an even more ancient geezer than he was two days ago.  Monday September 17 was my 80th birthday.  I never thought I would live that long but, on the other hand, I never intended to die either.  Now I must face up to the fact that I am really, really old.  Many people my age have already passed to the Great Beyond.  Others are written up in the obits as having gone their way "due to incidents of old age."  I am not sure that young people today are much in awe of old people because most young people by the age of 5 are more tech savvy than the average geezer.  No one ever has to ask a geezer for info because kids can ask Google, who knows all, and the info is likely to be more up-to-date and reliable than stuff I make up.

After three days of lunches, parties, and being the center of attention I am now abandoned and on my own once again.  I asked my wife last night what she was going to do for my birthday yesterday, one day past the 17th, to which she replied "nothing."  But, I protested, you said you loved me in your birthday card.   Well, she says, I don't love you that much.  Saturday was lunch with my wife and her two sisters and a trip to the farmer's market.  As I was buying corn, some maniac jumped up right in front of me and got in my face.  I was about to clobber this maniac when I realized it was my son Jim from California who had made a special trip to surprise me.  He had pulled this stunt once before, when my wife and I were in one car and Jim and family were in another and I left an hour before he did for southern California.  At Hesperia, just at the top of Cajon Pass, some maniac jumped up in front of me while paying for gas and about gave me a heart attack.  Turns out it was Jim.  Jim claimed I was driving really, really slow.

I had given my wife and sons explicit instructions not to have a birthday bash because it would make me feel self conscious.  Sunday we were on our way over to my other son Russell's for Sunday dinner when, suddenly, my son Jim pulled into the HOA club house at Russell's neighborhood.  I'm doomed, I said.  I was met with balloons, crepe paper, small great grandchildren trooping up to me with their handwritten birthday cards, and about 30 posterity and family.  How was I to know.  I didn't think anyone would care that I had turned 80 because they would merely think I was an even bigger grouch and, besides, I am a Democrat, and, heaven knows why, they are all Republicans.  But I did escape from what actually was a wonderful party with a new super-duper-top-of-the-line iPad, which I had been coveting for some time.  Now I can enter the realm of the unsociables who sit around at a get together twiddling their thumbs over their iPhones and iPads and ignore everyone else in the room.  I also was blessed with a digital photo frame and a few other odds and ends and cards.

Monday, my actual birthday, was then a trivial day since all the celebrating, singing, etc. had vanished.  My daughter-in-law, Susan, had given me a "Nixon now more than ever" button years ago and apologized for not being able to find another George Bush birthday card, a genre with which she had aggravated me several times in recent years.  So I prevailed on son Jim to haul me to Temple Square in downtown SLCity on Monday so I could take pictures of the flowers.  I was then in 7th heaven for a couple of hours, trying to find and photograph every different flower in the magnificent flower beds of Temple Square itself and the large Church Office Plaza flower gardens just to the east of the temple.  Then we went to lunch at the Nauvoo Room in the former Hotel Utah, now the Joseph Smith Building.  The Hotel Utah holds a special place for my wife and me since that is where we stayed nearly 60 years ago (this coming December) when we came from Laramie WY over icy roads to be married in the Salt Lake LDS Temple.

Now, apparently, my birthday is over.  Twenty three facebook wishes,which is a lot more friends than I thought I had.  An annual birthday card from my neighbor in St. George who deliberately flies his big red U of Utah flag whenever he thinks it will irritate me.  There were no cards yesterday.  No emails.  I had to fix my own lunch.  I had pleaded for a trip to Panda Express for some walnut shrimp, but my piteous pleas fell on deaf ears.  I came to the realization that my birthday was over, that no one cared one whit now.

So today I am still editing the 350 photos I took of the wonderful flowers at Temple Square.  For three wonderful days I was at peace with my friends and family, grateful beyond measure for the blessings of life, and for my wonderful wife who engineered all of these surprises despite her chronic pain even though I knew I wasn't worthy of any surpirse for being such an annoying (but entertaining, please) husband.  For two wonderful hours I lived among the flower gardens of Temple Square and now I can live with the photos I took which will long outlive the flowers themselves, soon to be victims to the harbingers of frost and autumn.  Life may be uncertain, but, as my wife's physician in St. George keeps reminding us, we are grateful for one day at a time.  May your life be as rewarding as mine has been for eight decades.

From the flower gardens at Temple Square and the Church Office Plaza.

Further Chronicles of the Curmudgeonly Professor's Law of Modern Technology

You will recall that recently the Curmudgeonly Professor expounded on the evils of modern technology and restated Blood's Law of Modern Technology, viz., (1) nothing ever works, (2) if it quits working no one can fix it, and (3) if someone does fix it, it won't stay fixed very long.\

The Curmudgeonly Professor does not wish to expound on fictitious laws without scientific verification and expert analysis.  Also, the Professor feels compelled to quote from the revised book of Lamentations ch. 42: v. 106:  Woe, woe unto those who have placed their faith in modern technology because yea, verily, your life will be plagued with boils and miseries.  How blessed they were in Biblical times to be limited to plagues of locusts.

Here is a summary of the Professor's week of misery, complaints, and frustrations with modern technology:

1. On Monday, the refigerator freezer's ice maker went kaput, for the zillionth time.  Now this event would not be so dramatic except we had already had four warranty service calls on it, including installation of new parts and, ultimately, the installation of an entirely new ice maker. Not to mention that immediately after we received our wonderful new Whirlpool fridge two years ago, we had to have an entire new freezer door installed.  So on Tuesday the repair guy worked on it awhile and then announced that he would have to order another new freezer door. We have been trying to determine if and when Whirlpool will give us our money back on this lemon so we can get a new fridge and start over again one more time.  After all, our previous Amana fridge had lasted 9 years and the one before that 20 years without a service call. Meanwhile he stuffed a couple of rags in the ice chute and patched up the electronic circuitry with some duct tape so we could freeze ice cubes during the interim period.
2. On Tuesday, my computer printer went bonkers.  So, determining that I actually needed new ink cartridges, the total cost of which exceeded the original cost of the printer which came as an almost-freebie with my new computer, we hied to Office Depot for ink cartridges, receiving a free (yes free!  Hallelujah!) 4G flash drive for spending $75 on ink.  On coming home, I discovered the black cartridge didn't fit, necessitating a trip back to Office Depot, whereupon it was explained to me that HP no longer made the fat black cartridge and I should go back home and stick the skinny one in which I had already tried.  But I did try again and it worked.  I am afraid to turn on my printer, but at least I know it has been endowed with printing authority and should be able to function so I can print off a batch more recipes from AllRecipes et. al.
3. Yesterday the phone quit working, making an extraordinarily loud buzzing noise when trying to talk or listen, plus people on the other end couldn't hear us.  After 30 minutes of automated phone torture, my wife finally talked to a live body who explained that if the phone company had to come out to the house there would be an $85 service charge if the problem was not in the external line.  He did say in a kindly fashion that he would check the lines from his exalted office and call us back in 3 minutes to let us know if he found out anything.  That event was over 3 hours ago during which time I listened to the last 20 minutes of a lousy Matlock episode. As of yet, we have not heard from exalted phone tech guy who obviously does not understand what it means to say he would call back in 3 minutes.  I hope he is enjoying his coffee break, or, if in Utah, Diet Caffeinated Coke break.
4. I messed up Google Chrome while trying to block some porn that crept in and I can't figure out how to unblock it to get to my other blogs.
5. My wife's TV quit working and we had to get a new receiver from Direct TV.
6. Today, the main TV set took an hour and a half before it decided to honor us by coming on so we could watch political rants and accusations to entertain us this afternoon.
7.  My hearing "aids" continue to torture me and blast me into the stratosphere by making loud noises so much louder.
8. Another ceiling light went out in the kitchen.
9. I burnt 4 pieces of French Toast because the food blesser blessed too long.
10. My internet keeps going off and on and off and on, resulting in stuff like "oh my heck" and other Utah sayings.
11. One of the main joys if stuff not working is the automated phone system in which our call is extremely important to them, we should continue to hold and a service representative will be with us in the next 2 hours, and we should continue to have our ears blasted with the most obnoxious "music" available.  Then we get a "tech" from somewhere in Cambodia or Guatematala, and we all know that outsourcing is not politically correct because it deprives able people from getting American jobs so we can at least understand what they are saying and the Gross Domestic Product will be increased, the unemployment rate will go down, domestic spending will rise, and WalMart sales will accelerate if we hire US of A types to confound us on our service calls.

I know this list is incomplete, but it is sufficient, as Matlock and the real lawyers say, to cause a belief in reasonable doubt that anything ever works or that it can ever get fixed, thus justifying my faith in the Law of Modern Technology.  The washing machine is living on borrowed time.  The Food Saver is defunct and won't seal.  Woe unto those who put their faith in modern technology.  Have a nice day.

Attention Men: The Curmudgeonly Professor Warns You Again: Do Not Accompany Your Wife to Kohl's Department Store

Several months having elapsed since I last accompanied my wife to Kohl's Department Store, I made the mistake of assuming that maybe going with her again may not be that bad.  Time is supposed to erase pain and help us remember only the positive side of things.  However, yesterday, I found myself entering the portals of Kohl's once more.  Here is a list of the things I learned from this big mistake:

• Wives can look at stuff for hours on end.  It took me five minutes to find 3 pair of Gold Toe socks on sale.  I was then ready to leave.
• Wives get lost and you have to walk the 5 mile perimeter of the store three or four times to try and find them.
• Wives have clipped Kohl's coupons for weeks and have figured out how they can buy stuff for practically nothing, a process that can get inordinately complicated.  JC Penney could take a lesson here, having spend hundreds of gazillion $$$$ to change the marketing plan and advertising schemes for their stores only to find that, thank you, women shoppers love coupons, they love % off stuff and not just supposedly "low prices," and they love ads that have zillions of items all marked down.  The first time I saw a new Penney's ad brochure I said, this is really beautiful, outstanding photography and beautiful printing, but it isn't going to induce anyone to spend any money at Penneys.  If they would have asked me, I would have saved them gazillions of $$$$.  But I digress.
• One must walk through acres of lady's undergarments to get anywhere, whereas men's stuff typically takes one or two racks.
• Kohl's keeps changing stuff around.
• Standard price is generally irrelevant since everything is usually on sale one week or another.
• I told the cashier, after my wife handed her umpteen $$ off coupons and cash return coupons and other coupons, that I had been through sheer torture.  She sympathized with me but consoled me by saying "at least you got some socks."  Wow.
• Whereupon I was saved as we finally exited, noting that the automatic door opener didn't work, and headed for nearby Great Harvest Bread store, which makes fantastic bread, but for nearly six bucks a loaf.  I need to learn how to make bread.
• I hope I can recover from emotional and physical strain from accompanying my wife to Kohl's Department Store.  I can always tell who my brethren are when I see an old man dutifully with an extremely pained and tortured look on his face dutifully following in meek obedience behind a stern looking old lady.  Why do we need to shop anyway?  We have a lot more stuff than we need anyway, and we should make do with what we have.  The economy has already tanked and spending a few more bucks at Kohl's under the illusion that if we use 5 $10 off coupons we are really putting one over on Kohl's is not going to affect the Gross Domestic Product or affect public stimulus spending or Medicare one iota.
• Have a nice day and heed my warning.  Woe, woe if you ignore my epistle.

What to do When Hard Times Are Upon You

All of us have hard and difficult times at one time or another.  Some times the difficulties seem insurmountable, with no solutions or possible improvement in sight.  Yesterday on the weekly Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast, the commentator noted that "no matter how hard things are, they could always be worse."  This little mini-sermon was followed by the choir singing Iriving Berlin's "Count Your Blessings."  ("When I'm worried and I can't sleep . . . ")  So, it may be hard to realize that we are still better off than we might be or might have been, but we could be in a far worse situation.  And, no matter how dire our straits, we still have many blessings to count.  As long as we can breathe, we all have many blessings for which we can be thankful, many people who bless our lives, much sunshine, many beautiful mountains and flowers and sunrises and sunsets.  Keep your chin up.  I'm trying, myself.  It's not always easy.

The Snowbird's Chronicles and Laments, Continued

Earlier I wrote about how we made all the prepararations, phone calls, arrangements, etc., that we needed to make before we migrated north.  Lest you may think that everything went smoothly, here is an update:

• The first bad news was when the furnace repairman came back upstairs after checking the furnace and air conditioner before turning the AC on to tell us the good news that the freon had all vanished.  Either it was stolen, or the air conditioner was defunct.  It would have cost $1000 to find out if the air conditioner was defunct and fill it again with freon, so we opted for a new air conditioner.  Of course, then the furnace itself was marginal.  So, to greet us upon our arrival on the Wasatch Front, we had to install a new air conditioner plus a new furnace.  Oh happy day.
• Television:  The TV hookup went smoothly enough, we thought, when we turned the main TV on.  Then we realized we had to call the TV co. to get the other 3 (mostly ancient) TVs running.
• Plus I discovered last night that we had two premium channels that I did not order, and specifically told them I did not want, one in particular which shows a disproportionate number of truly nasty late night films.  So I spent a half hour this morning, going through three separate automated robot callers while continuously punching "O" for a live person.  Finally I got the unordered channels removed, which were never ordered in the first place.  And we wonder why we are admonished to "make a list and check it twice" so we didn't mess everything up continuously.
• Phone:  We thought surely the phone would be up and running, but discovered that the phone told callers when we weren't home that "the mailbox has not yet been set up."  Of course, the answering machine was supposed to be set up and functioning when we got here.  It took another 24 hours before the phone co. could get inspired and fix this.
• Internet:  Internet on the north end was running, but we ran into major troubles trying to put the internet in the south on seasonal suspend.  We were first told we could suspend it, then a different "manager" told us we would have to pay for three extra months before we could suspend it.
• Now I am disputing my wonderful mail-order pharmacy dispenser which delights in sending out a confusing prescription list full of duplications and errors and steadfastly refusing to correct it.
• The Shark steam cleaner was missing from our garage when we got here.  Who? How? When? What?
• On the sunny side, my wonderful neighbor had already planted four tomato plants by my back door, we married off our grandson Aaron to a beautiful bride in a classy military wedding at Hill AFB, we celebrated my wife's birthday with a multitude of gifts and dinners, our two sons graciously moved us back to SL from St. G., and we had a nice indoor Memorial Day picnic at one son's place yesterday. One son came from San Francisco for the wedding and we had a wonderful and inspiring trip to Costco, spending a month's social security on TP and Kleenex. Our only regret is that we couldn't go to the cemetery in Orem to pay respects to my wife's parents.  Since my parents are in the Penrose WY cemetery in NW WY, the best I could do was a tribute on Penrose Mornings blog, linked to the right.  Check it out.  May your life be free from glitches and from people who never get around to double checking anything and making sure that things are done correctly as promised.  Have a nice day.

The Curmudgeonly Professor's To Do List to Be a Snowbird and Fly North

The uninitiated may think that life is a breeze to be a snowbird, fleeing south when the North turns cold, and fleeing North when the south turns into a furnace.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Here is a partial list of stuff I have to do to go back north as the temperatures in St. George begin crowding 100:

• Find the box of books I brought to St. George last winter expecting to read them and never unpacked them, leaving them in the box so they would be easier to haul back north again.
• Change addresses on about 30 or 40 periodicals.  Typically, five or six of them never get changed and I never see them again.
• Put the TV and internet on vacation hold.  Apparently this cannot be done until ten minutes before you want this hold to take effect.
• Stop the newspapers.  Last year, the newspaper carrier kept delivering the papers a couple of weeks after we told them to stop delivering them.  
• Start the newspapers up North.
• Change the telephone service between the two phones.  Some times this gets taken care of, some times it does not.  Depends on whether any one does what they are supposed to do.
• Start the internet up North.
• Making changes in TV, phone, cell phone, and internet typically takes a couple of hours on the phone listening to "you're call is terribly, terribly important to us, and that is why we make you wait forever to talk to a robot while you listen to this goshawful noise and clamor that is supposed to be music."   Then, listen to the following list of 27 options.  No, no, I just want to talk to a human being and not a robot and tell them what I need to do.  We're sorry, you can only talk to robots.  Do you mind if we put you on hold for a few moments while we look up your account?  Help yourself, I say.  A half hour later, after finishing their lunch or whatever, we get "I'll have to transfer you over to xyz department because I don't handle that stuff; translated, meaning I don't know what the heck I am doing because I have only been imprisoned in this cubicle for two days and I have no idea what to tell you.  Another half hour of listening to noise.  Are you having a party there, I ask, since it really sounds loud, and the answer is it's always noisy here because these cubicles are not very high and we are really packed in here.  I felt like asking, "where do you keep the robot?"  About two hours later and I have been assured that my tv, internet, phone, cell phone, etc., have all been put on hold in one place and started up in another.  I have heard that song before, only getting to the other place and having to call up saying, "I thought the internet, or whatever, was supposed to be hooked up today," whereupon the voice on the other end may say, "I have no record of that."  Believe me, this has all happened before.
• Now on to the post office, where the kindly postal clerk was obviously being besieged with snowbirds changing their mail delivery from the hot place to the cold place, only to get frustrated filling out the forms.  Three years ago, we didn't get our mail forwarded for three months because the sorting center for USPS erroneously kept our old address card and did not substitute the new one.  
• Then it's just a minor matter to throw out all the crud that has accumulated for six months.  It is useful, however, to have an opportunity to go through the pile of to-do stuff I brought down here that needed urgent attention and which I never got around to giving it any (attention) due to my busy, busy schedule as an emeritus full professor of economics.  So now I have to haul all this stuff back up north again with the hopes I might get inspired to look at it there.  If anything is really important, some one is being paid to call and bug you about it a half dozen times, anyway.
• Whatever else you do, take all battery chargers, phone chargers, a bushel of computer cables, software backups.  It helps to put a tape ID on the cords saying where the heck they are attached to so you don't have to say bad words at the other end trying to hook all this electronic stuff back up again.
• Clean out fridge, pantry, freezer; toss out all frozen remnants you never got around to eating.
• Mop and vacuum all floors.
• Check tire pressure and car.  My neighbor snowbird from Chicago was ready to leave the other day, all loaded and primed, and his car wouldn't start.  It was a hybrid with a dead battery.  And he being a professor of engineering. 
• Figure out how to get all your junk into two cars.
• Hop on I-15 headed north, preparing to stop in Beaver at the cheese factory, and Santaquin at the apple barn.  Wave at all snowbirds with Montana, North Dakota, and Canadian license plates as the parade of fifth wheels, travel trailers, mobile homes, etc., clogs I-15.
• Arrive at destination.  Unload junk.  Wonder why you went to all this effort.  Check TV, internet, phone, etc., to see if people did what they said they would do.  Lots of luck needed here.  Turn on water, AC, etc., making sure everything works and you don't need the plumbers and air conditioner guys the first day you are back.
• Check to see what time Matlock comes on.
• Wait five or six months and go through all of this torture again.

 

 

Happy Daylight Savings Time

Hurray! Now the clock in my den above my computer is set at exactly the right time.  I no longer have to subtract an hour, which I sometimes have forgotten to do.  I haven't seen a sophisticated economic analysis of the marginal costs and marginal benefits and the short and long run equilibria of changing the clocks every six months.  Besides, I never could understand daylight savings time just like I never fully registered when Mrs. Strong in 7th grade science explained with her little orbiting models how the sun revolved around the earth.  Or maybe the earth revolved around the sun.  Whatever.

To start with today, at 11:00 a.m. new correct time, my Salt Lake newspapers haven't been delivered yet so I called them and they explained, obviously, that the print schedule is under the old time but also that the supervisor had changed carriers three times in the past two weeks for our route.  No wonder the papers were dumped occasionally on the street and mostly on the end of the driveway. (Brief absence: the paper supervisor just honked to let me know the papers were here finally and he actually threw them up the driveway nearly to the garage.)

I am trying to evaluate the costs and benefits of daylight savings time.  Blessedly, I can now remember the spring forward and fall backward motto, because it makes no sense to spring backward.  But for everyone who likes an extra hour of daylight (or dark), someone hates an extra hour of daylight (or dark).  Our pill-taking schedules, our meal schedules, our church schedules, our body schedules, our activity schedules all get fouled up.  It usually takes me about six months to adjust, and then we have to go back the other direction.  I seem to recall having read that forcing our bodies to make these changes can actually be harmful to our health, so, as a hypochondriac, I am extremely worried about what effects might attack me.

In case you have wondered whether daylight savings time is the product of some conspiracy to complicate our lives, the Curmudgeonly Professor, in his efforts to keep his readers out of the depths of ignorance, has enlightened you with the blog post below from Huff Post Science.

We have had to go around the house and change about 20 clocks this morning, knowing full well that we will have to reverse this nuisance task in a few more months.  Let's see now: my watch says ll:15 a.m.  Actually it's only 10:15.  Church starts at 1:00.  Actually, that's noon.  I don't know if I can be ready by noon.

I hope you are enjoying having your life all twisted around today.  Now I have to figure out whether 7:00 p.m. tonight will be darker or lighter than it was at 7:00 p.m. last night.  Just as I am trying to conjure up Mrs. Strong's 7th grade science lecture about the orbiting of the earth around the sun, or the sun around the earth.  Whichever.  Have a Happy Daylight Savings Day.