Archive for June, 2009

Do you know your LATA?

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

stuffI don’t know my Local Access and Transport Area. In fact, I tried to google LATA and aside from one rather confusing Wikipedia article, there wasn’t much. Once upon a time, knowing your LATA was important to some people, especially those who were trying to reduce their long-distance phone bills (think MCI family and friends) Including a beloved, late relative of ours.

I never did know my LATA and I’m not sure that a LATA makes much difference any more. I can’t remember the last time I used my land line to make a long-distance call. It may even have been the time we called Mouse in Dakar on Christmas and ended up with a $470 bill. Yes, you read that right. I didn’t put a decimal point in that number because why bother? It would’ve been after the zero. I bet if the Google had been around back in the days of the LATA, there would’ve been about a gazillion phone-related results for LATA.

So. People want to know. How expensive are them thar smart phones. Like the iPhone… Well. I went through a bunch of website gyrations today to be able log on to “my” ATT site so I could figger out what we are paying for. I mean, I *know* that we pay roughly $130 a month for two iPhones but I couldn’t remember how those costs were broken down. This is for old (2G?) phones: $20 a month *each* for “data” (that means Internet connection), $70 a month for phone service ($60 for the first phone and $10 for the second), plus the usual inscrutable “surcharges”, et al. If you are light-weight phone users like we are and you don’t tell Twitter to send your messages as text messages (like someone we all know and love but will remain un-named), you won’t pay anything much extra.

I have an *old* iPhone. I am not sure what the charges will be with the new ones. I *think* that we at least won’t have to pay $600 each for new phones. I hope not. It isn’t all that clear what the exact costs will be but I haven’t exactly been bird-dogging this stuff, so who knows… iPhone applications vary in price. Many of them are free or *very* inexpensive ($1-$5), at least if you are an old bag like me and don’t tend to download 5,000 99-cent applications per month. iBird is actually one of the more expensive ones I’ve encountered, $10 for the “cheep” version, $30 for the more comprehensive.

Again, I am done for the night. Seeya at 5 AM USB! –KW

Why? Because we’re crazy and irresponsible.

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

iphoneNo, those are not new iPhones. New iPhones are not being sold yet. Those are our old-school iPhones that we bought in August 2007 for $600 each!!!! Yes!!!! That’s how much they cost. Could we afford them? Hmm… Here’s a link to the post I made the day we bought them, during an absolutely torrential rainstorm.

I am a geek from way back (think Fortran on a mainframe with a v-e-r-y slow dial-up modem) but I had been a snot about the iPhone that whole first summer they were sold. Why the heck would I *need* such a beast? All I needed was a blasted *phone*! The GG, who had always been an extreme phone Luddite in my experience, was hot to get one. I made him put it off all summer and he had lost his previous phone in February so that was not really a good thing. Anyway. Finally. It was a Sunday. A *boring* Sunday. There was torrential rain. I already said that. He asked yet again, “Do you want to go and look at iPhones?” “Oh, okay,” was my grudgingly reluctant reply. And so we went shopping. And how long do you think it took me to decide to spend $1200 dollars?? (Because we bought two phones, roight?) Hmmm??? About five minutes. You go, Kayak Woman! Way to save money!

Will I be upgrading to the new phone? Yes. But not until our contract runs out later in the summer. Do I like my iPhone? Er, do dinosaurs poop in the grass? This morning, for example. It was 5:30 AM and I groped for my phone to check the weather (and Twitter). I got enough weather information (BTW: no tornadoes, you guys, not even any good storms) that I could go straight into the Blue and Only Bathroom to take my shower and dress appropriately for my morning powerwalk afterwards. No need to walk into the kitchen to check the outdoor thermometer. No need to faaarrrr up my MacBook to check the weather or (horrors) actually turn on a boob tube.

Yes, these phones are cool. I have been happy with mine since the beginning. I probably use the camera almost more than anything else but I often use it to read blahgs or check twitter or email or, well, I won’t bore you with the relatively few apps I’ve downloaded. Not today anyway. My birding friends might like to know about iBird though. For the record, I don’t personally have this app on my phone. I love nature, including birds, but the GG is the birder of the family (he doesn’t have a blahg) and so he has the app. It is very cool, like having a comprehensive bird book with sound in your phone.

Enough for now, another day I’ll talk about some of the other apps a baggy old moom of 20-somethings has downloaded to her phone.

G’night
KW

Watching lazily for things that spiral and create great devastation.

Monday, June 8th, 2009

fleursFirst of all, yesterday’s horrific-looking freeway accident did not kill anyone. In fact, if my understanding of the article is accurate, it didn’t even happen *on* the freeway but on the “old” version of US23, which, in that particular area, is literally feet away from the freeway. You can click here for the story (be warned, there’s a video that plays automatically with a loud, obnoxious ad at the beginning). I don’t totally understand the whole thing, even though I was driving in the area during the aftermath of the accident. I’m pretty sure I did see the red minivan. It was stopped next to a police vee-hickle that was blocking (sorta) people from getting on to the freeway. You might sometimes hear people complain about the police and there are undoubtedly a few bad apples in the bunch (like in the, uh, banking industry…) but law enforcement officers are necessary in this society and they are definitely necessary on over-crowded roads like we have here in the southeast corner of the Great Lake State. This deputy sheriff was doing his job responding to an accident and I’m glad he wasn’t killed.

Those flowers? Planted at Houghton Lake by my sister-in-law Becky, who I do not see often enough. It wasn’t too long ago that Mouse and the Uncliest Uncle (being the GG’s identical twin) would plant flowers at Houghton Lake every year. I don’t know who hit fast-forward but Mouse is finishing up her senior year of college this spring and wasn’t around to help this year. I think Becky did a great job! Me? Y’all know I have a black thumb. The flowers are prettier in person and also in my original hi-res photo that I downsized for fast loading on the web.

And yes, we are under a tornado watch. This is the first tornado watch of the 2009 season. I don’t think we’ll get one. But who knows. When yet a third tree falls on the Landfill, I’ll find my way out from under the branches and grope in the dark for my iPhone so I can blahg/twitter about it.

High speed chase?

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

dropletsTraffic going down the southbound I75 SUV Speedway from Houghton Lake was light today. In fact it was so light that I was starting to get a little sleepy. Not a good thing. We were past the I75/US23 interchange and I was clunking along down south of Fenton thinking about getting a cup of coffee or whatever. Taillights… We limped along for a while and then traffic sped up and then taillights again. And an exit! Okay. I am outta here. I know that often if you sit through a traffic jam on the freeway, you end up making about the same time as if you get off and go through a whole bunch of labyrinthine gyrations through unknown streets. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be in motion. And we weren’t in an urban area. We were in the beautiful countryside area north of I96. So off we went. I’ll spare you all of the labyrinthine gyrations we went through trying to get back to the freeway. At one point we were on *old* US23, which is only a few feet from the freeway. And that’s where we realized that the po-leese were making us turn around. Because. There was a half disintegrated *police* car on a flatbed tow truck. It did not look good. Whatever the accident was happened right in front of a golf course and there were rubber-neckers hanging out there with lawn chairs and beer and the whole works (actually I may be making the beer up). Lots of photographers, including us… More labyrinthine navigating through the back roads. I was in Parshallville for the first time ever today though I’ve been seeing “Parshallville Cider Mill” signs from the freeway forever. Beautiful town, will have to go back. Aaaaand finally back on the freeway and home.

We came across this accident well after it had been cleaned up but it looked bad. The whole front end of the cop car was a mangled, burned up mess. You know, the place where the engine should be. I couldn’t tell by looking whether this was a survivable accident or not. There was no evidence of whatever the cop car *hit* (or was hit by). Any other vee-hickle must’ve been hauled away already. I’m sure this will be in the news and we’ll know just how bad and I’m not looking forward to that. I think that more than a few people are having a very bad day today. Don’t you just want to turn back time sometimes?

In light of that, I am not posting our accident pic (actually, I don’t even know how it turned out). Instead, you guys get this picture of rain on leaves at the Reedsburg Dam near Houghton Lake. And if you click here or on the pic, you get more. It was a cold weekend up there (except for the inside of WollMort) and I certainly wore my little knit glubs but I got by without my ski jacket. There were not a whole lot of campers anywhere that we could tell but I got a huge kick out of the enthusiastic folks camping at the Reedsburg with “Hillbilly Deluxe” painted across the back of their pickup truck and two big American flags planted in the truck bed. Up in the Great White North for the weekend and letting it all hang out. Love it, I’m not sure I’m very far away from being a hillbilly myself.

BothBird-brained

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

tabascoLast night, in yet another attempt to avoid household drudgery, I took an Internet quiz about whether I was left or right-brained. I can never exactly remember what traits go with which kind of brainedness. But maybe that’s because my quiz result was that I was both-brained. Which didn’t much surprise me. Actually, maybe it explains some things. Like the fact that at 50-something I *still* don’t know what I want to be when I grow up?

Are you right or left-brained? Or both brained? What is your Myers-Briggs? I don’t know mine. People have tried to predict it. I am pretty sure I am not an INTJ but I do share some INTJ traits. But not all. One of these days maybe I’ll take the test and we’ll see. True Colors? I have done workshops on that. With the Haisley PTO, don’tcha know. I’m a “green”. Some o’ my best friends were “orange” and they were having the best time at their table throwing wads of paper at each other. Everybody at my table (including yer fav-o-rite blahgger) was spewing out volumes of intense blather about themselves.

Maybe a better question is do you believe in this stuff? What does it mean? How is it useful to know someone’s personality type or whatever? I’m not sure. I think that personalities come in gazillions and quintillions of variations across a three-dimensional continuum. How do you try to quantify that? You can’t, of course. Not really. Then again, I know from going to True Colors workshops that I at least came out of there with a new insight into what might make some of the people that drove me the craziest tick. Uh, like myself…

Boxes of summer

Friday, June 5th, 2009

bettygloves1It was August 2004 and Radical Betty was walking the beach with *glubs*. Yes, in August. Glub, glub, glub. That was back when I was rolling my own little blahg and not usually posting long incoherently rambling bunches of blather that even I can’t keep up with. Ahem. Like I do now. One particular week, I had a series of guest blahggers. Radical Betty’s guest post was “We had a long winter and we just got a little box of summer!” The post went on to say that it was 44 (Fahrenheit) that morning and never got above 57 (Fahrenheit again). And no, Radical Betty didn’t actually get onto the computer and *type* the guest blahg. I typed the quote and posted the picture.

Yes, here in the Great Lake State you never quite know what you’re gonna get weatherwise. Summer of 1988? Temperatures in the upper 90s and low 100s for, oh, I dunno how long. Maybe six weeks? And no rain. None. Nada. A “dry” heat. Roight. The grass in the schoolyard turned brown. We did not have central air in our house at that time. Who needed it? We did not even have an automotive vee-hickle with a/c. Windows down, everyone. Problem. With two children under four, it was an absolutely *miserable* summer. Mouse, at 18 months, came down with roseola and was spiking fevers up to 104 degrees, which was about the ambient outdoor/indoor temperature and we actually filled the little plastic KMart-type kiddie pool in the back yard and sat in there with her. Yes, really. I know. It sounds like we flunked parenting 101. You had to be there. Really. Finally, my annual three-week vacation arrived and I got the heck offa The Planet Mercury, which is what The Planet Ann Arbor felt like that summer. I got those kids up to the moominbeach where, even if it’s hot, you can always walk out up to your neck into Gitchee Gumee, one of the biggest air conditioners in the world.

This June? Hot? Not so much. It has been beautiful though. 39 degrees this morning! Yes, another glub day. But when we left The Planet this afternoon, it was in the 70s. And here at Houghton Lake, it is a little cooler but warm enough for polartech jackets and shorts. And again a contrast to another trip up here that I remember. One year ago, almost to the day. Tornadoes all the way up and tornadoes all the way back and the craziest looking orange sky I have ever seen the Friday night we got here.

G’night. I do have some glubs up here. And my ski jacket.

Not WollMort

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

notwalmartIt’s June and this is Michigan and this morning I wore little knit glubs on my walk. Glub glub glub. You guys know what a glub is, roight? I did *not* wear my ski jacket but I think I better remember to pack it for Houghton Lake this weekend. Because who knows. It was an extremely long winter. I didn’t really notice it all that much except for the day the Dogha and I almost bit the dust on black ice. I am young and I can wield a snow shovel with the best of them and I like being out in the dark and the cold and I have a vee-hickle that can navigate snow up to oh, I dunno, about six inches of snow maybe. And if all else fails, I can work from home (although I have decided I *like* my work cubicle) and walk to the Plum Market for groceries if need be. Not a bad set-up (hope it lasts through these hard times). Blowing snow? Bring it on. Today. Yes, it started out pretty dern cold, lower 40s to be exact. By the time I got home, and we won’t talk about my commute home except to say that I didn’t get out of my vee-hickle and pound on anyone’s window and threaten to kill them. Yes, it was that bad. But I got lost somewhere in that last sentence. Anyway. I *finally* got home and boy has it turned into a nice day! Warm and sunny and not too hot. As I was wheeling my handy dandy Planet Ann Arbor garbage cart out to the curb, I saw my beloved elderly neighbors Hans and Myra walking gingerly down the sidewalk toward me, feeling the sun for the first time in months. There were days when the winter of 2009 caused some inconvenience for me. It was much harder on our elderly friends. I was glad to see them. They asked why our neighbor Joan’s house was for sale and I told them and I am not sure that they were aware that she had died. I am not the best neighbor. I work and I live in a revolving door of in and out of town on weekends. And I am not one of those just drop in for a cuppa folks in general. Maybe on the moominbeach but we were taught as kids that everywhere else on earth, you had to knock on people’s doors to ask to be admitted. On the moominbeach, we could just walk in to anyone’s cabin. It isn’t *quite* like that any more but pretty much. If you are in the bathroom, so what. Of course, back in those days, if you were in the bathroom, you were in the outhouse and therefore not in the cabin. And I am rambling incoherently now and so, g’night!!

Outta my league

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

bridgemanI am not a sports fan. I have the greatest respect for sports fans. I know some of my 10 regular readers follow various sports intensely and even play them and I have a wonderful young first-cousin-once-removed who is working in the baseball industry for his first after-college job. I think it’s all cool. When I was a little kid, I *did* sports. Oh, not anything organized. Just pickup games of kickball in the street or occasional baseball in the back corner of the Pingatore block (I think there’s a house there now). *Always* running and jumping and bicycle-type contests. I was good at that stuff when I was a kid. I don’t ever remember any adult involvement at all.

Sitting in stadiums. I am not so good at. To be fair, I’m not good at sitting in theatres watching plays either. My kids were theatre rats instead of sports rats. Same difference in so many ways. I don’t like to sit. At least not without my laptop or [one of] my UFP[s] or my iPhone or whatever. Yes, I am bad.

I can’t exactly remember how many times I have been in the old Tiger Stadium but I’m sure I could count it on one hand. So why do I care that they are seriously talking about tearing it down? Because the key word in the decision seems to be “development”. I dunno. Here is yet another place that I am out of my league. I have never spent a lot of time in Detroit. I used to go there to visit my grandparents in its heyday, before the 1967 riots forced them out to Birmingham. But I was a little kid and I only remember little snippets. Henry Ford Museum, Top of the Flame, Cobo Hall, downtown Hudsons, my grandaddy’s Cadillac with the push-button windows. Heck, back then in the Yoop, on the rare days that you might need a little air-conditioning or whatever, you rolled down the windows and, if you were lucky, Grandroobly’s cigar butts didn’t fly out the front window and get sucked in through the back window into your lap.

Again, I am out of my league because I do *not* have a comprehensive view of the geography of Detroit but I believe that there are large tracts of land in the city of Detroit that now have so few houses on them that they are reverting back to field or woods or prairie or whatever. So… Why are we tearing down Tiger Stadium for “new development”? What is going to be “developed”? Why can’t the “new development” happen on some of those old dead parts of the once vibrant city? There is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of Tiger Stadium. I’m sure it has the usual difficulties about raising money but why *can’t* the old stadium be restored and maybe used for some different purpose. And why can’t the blasted developers re-use some of the land where houses have been destroyed to do whatever re-vitalization they are envisioning.

But then there’s the Yooper in me who has to ask, “What’s so bad about letting devastated city blocks revert to field/woods/prairie?”

Questions here but no answers… Like I said, I am out of my league.

I can’t believe I drank the whole thing

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

frogallSo yesterday General Motors declared bankruptcy. This event is devastating to uncountable (because I don’t have any statistics at hand) residents of our beautiful Great Lake State as well as many folks in other states. At this stage of the game, it does not seem likely to affect this household’s income but who knows. Knock wood everybody. Nothing is ever safe and I wish very good luck to those reading this who *are* negatively affected by this economy. Y’all are in good company.

We didn’t always own GM vee-hickles when I was a kid but I got my driver’s license in a 1967 Pontiac Tempest. It was an automatic but it did not have power steering or power brakes. Imagine that. Some of you are old enough to remember those days. Mouse is more likely to remember the day she tried to drive the POC and the power steering fluid was leaking and awful noises occurred, etc. I think the old Pontiac Tempest was a pretty good vee-hickle and so was the big old Buick that the old man bought around the time I left home. It was green. Banker Green, as The Engineer and I used to joke just to screw with the old coot’s psyche. The GG and I have owned various vee-hickles over the years: Ford, Chrysler, VW, Honda (Honda Honda Honda Honda). No GM vee-hickles. We have had good and bad vee-hickles with every company we’ve bought vee-hickles from except for Honda. Are we bad Americans for buying Honda? Well… The Honda company is based in Japan but I think all but one of our Hondas was built in the U.S.A. That is jobs, folks.

I am really not trying to analyze the situation or predict the future for the auto industry or make any kind of political statement here. When I buy a vee-hickle, the main thing I am interested in is that it will not leave me sitting by the side of the road. I travel the freeways a lot and I travel alone frequently and I just don’t want to run that risk. If GM, in the new downsized version that is envisioned, builds vee-hickles that are as reliable as our Hondas have been, I’ll be interested. Once upon a time, I asked a certain GM-type engineer for opinions about downsizing from minivan to sedan and he was the one who suggested Honda. *He* had already started buying Hondas… Miss you, ol’ boy.

Er, what kind of vee-hickle did you get your license in and what kind of vee-hickle do you drive now? And whatddya think about GM? About the bankruptcy or just the company…

Willy Nilly Shally Shilly

Monday, June 1st, 2009

Let’s forgo all of the boring, incoherent blather I have percolating in my brain today (honestly you do *not* want to know!) and we’ll just say that I did choose the baby over the fish. I like fish, so it was a hard choice. Once, when I was three and my cuzzint Grinch was six, we were in the back of Grandroobly’s car (or maybe it was one of Grandberry’s Studebakers, I dunno, I don’t remember whether there was cigar smoke or not) and we fought to the death over who got to hold a package of smoked fish that had been purchased somewhere up near Fin Family Moominbeach. Out on the res or wherever. (I doubt that the Grinchie remembers that incident even though he is older than me but I swear it’s true.) Anyway, in the end, I guess I couldn’t resist the cute little outfit so I got stuck with the baby and some Veteran Greenhorn got to enjoy the fish.

fishbaby