News and Views

I’m still not sure I did the right thing buying the Acura, but I am sleeping at night again.

My plan is to keep it a year, and then see how I feel. They hold their value well, so I won’t lose too much selling it next year if that’s what my heart says to do. In the mean time, it is a lot of fun to drive.

Thanks to all the suggestions from you guys, I have also decided to keep my mini-van. Just yesterday I used it to take a whole sectional sofa to Derek’s house — all in one trip. It would have taken three trips in the Acura, if I would have even dared put it in there!

The Economist published a poll a couple of days ago that asked (among other things):

“Do you think that Muslims have a constitutional right to build a mosque … near the World Trade Center site?”

The question wasn’t “Is it wise?” or “Does it make you uncomfortable?”, or “Do you hate the idea, and hate Muslims?”. It was “Do they have a constitutional right?”

Barely 50% of Americans said “Yes”.

This makes me depressed about the future of freedom in this country, that 50% of the population doesn’t believe in full freedom of religion for everyone.

Yep, on that brand new Acura Crossover SUV.

Not that it isn’t a wonderful vehicle, but I keep looking at my old Odyssey and think about all the things I can’t do with the new one: Carry 7 people comfortably (it happens more than you might guess), throw dirty stuff in the back (would never do that with the new Acura), fit a 4′x8′ piece of plywood, or a washer and dryer both in the back, drive it home all sweaty from basketball, carry everything Devon owns home from Pasadena.

And I think about how much we will be spending to repair the house. The insurance covers most of the repairs, but we need to get a lot of new furniture — the old is getting ratty. And Gisele needs $10,000 worth of dental work (2 implants).

I’ve felt buyer’s remorse a little before, especially when we bought this house, but it was mild, and in my heart I knew we had done the right thing. This time my heart tells me differently.

Pondering my options.

They had 23 fans and 5 dehumidifiers in the house for 4 days. What a racket! They finally judged the house dry, and took the equipment away last night, so at least it’s peaceful again.

The insurance adjuster was here this morning, and estimated about $7000 just to repair the damage to the walls. That doesn’t include the expense of drying out the house (that will be billed directly to that company so we will probably never know how much that was) or the new flooring (material or installation). It’s all covered after our $1000 deductible, except any updgrades to flooring, etc.

The repair man just left, after reviewing the job. They should start drywall repairs in 2-3 days, and be done in about 2 weeks total. Then comes the flooring. We are thinking of replacing the carpet with wood in several of the rooms, and maybe tile in the bathroom and utility room, so this is a good time to have the insurance company help with the cost.

After driving my Honda Odyssey for 10 years and 145,000 miles, I decided it was time for a new car. When you live many years with a car, you’re not aware of the gradual change as it ages — it still seems about like it did when it was new. But it’s not the car it was when you bought it. I was going to make a comment about spouses, but won’t. (Wait — I just did…) I still love my Odyssey, but…

I just bought a brand new 2010 Acura MDX Crossover SUV. Except for the entertainment package (DVD screen for rear seat passengers), I got all the bells and whistles. It’s the coolest car I’ve ever owned, or seen for that matter.

Some of the neat techy features include:
- Adaptive Cruise Control, where it uses radar to keep a safe distance from the car in front
- Collision Mitigation Braking System, where the same radar will warn you of an imminent collision and if necessary put on the brakes and tighten your seat belt.
- Blind Spot Information system, where it detects cars in the blind spot on either side.
- CDs are copied to a Hard Disk Drive, so you don’t need a disk changer.
- Ventilated seats in the front — air blows through tiny holes in the leather to keep you cool.

Plus all the “usual” stuff like Navigation, Bluetooth phone connection, back-up camera, etc.

It’s going to take me a while to figure everything out, but it will be lots of fun doing so.

The 2011’s will be out in a couple of months, but nothing has changed, and dealers were very ready to bargain to start clearing out the 2010 stock. So I probably shouldn’t have splurged, but if I keep it for 10 years I hope I will feel that I got my money’s worth.

We had a nice rain storm last night, but that’s not what this is about.

The connection to the downstairs toilet broke some time in the night, and we woke to standing water all over the lowest level of the house. The water is not above the top of the carpet, but walking on carpets leaves puddles. Family room, my office, guest room, laundry room and bathroom are soaked. Will probably have to replace all the carpet, moulding, and maybe drywall behind the baseboard.

We were tired of that carpet anyway…

Fortunately insurance will cover it, but it’s still a big hassle. Service Masters is coming in about 2 hours to begin the drying process. I’ll update here as we progress.

You may remember that Devon was accepted into the Cornell University Graduate Physics program. He wanted to spend the summer in Taiwan, studying Mandarin and immersing himself into another culture.

Well, he’s having so much fun that he doesn’t want to come back. He contacted Cornell, and told them he was enrolled in the University in Taiwan (which he is) and requested a one-year deferral. They agreed.

So he will remain in Taiwan through the winter.

Besides studying Chinese, he has met some people in the entertainment business that have him almost convinced he could be a model, actor and/or pop singer. I hope he doesn’t hit the ground too hard if reality disagrees…

I know that self-diagnosing by browsing the internet is often a bad idea. But in this case I think I got it right.

For months, every time after I get out of the shower, my legs would start itching. At times it is almost unbearable, and I sit there scratching away. It peaks about 5 minutes after drying off, and then usually lasts about an hour. It’s mostly in my feet and legs below the knees, though I get a little itchy on my back and other places.

At first I thought maybe I was allergic to the soap, or maybe the detergent or softener used to wash my towel, but switching things didn’t help at all.

Finally a little research on the internet showed that I was not alone: I had Aquagenic Pruritis. Aqua = water, Genic = cause, Pruritis = Itching.

There is no cure, but there are things to do to reduce the symptoms. I have tried three things:

1) Rub Benadryl lotion on my legs after my shower. It helps, but it takes 10-15 minutes to work, and it’s unpleasant waiting for it to take effect.

2) Desensitize the skin by multiple applications each day of a capsaicin lotion. (Capsaicin is the active ingredient in chili peppers that make them taste spicy. Be warned not to touch your eyes after applying!) I don’t know if this has helped. Maybe I don’t put it on enough times each day.

3) The thing that helps the most: Rub baby oil over my legs before my shower. Apparently this seals the skin so the water has less contact. It makes my legs a little oily, naturally, but a light layer isn’t bad. And it helps a lot, almost totally eliminating the itch.

I’ll keep up the capsaicin treatment for a while, and hopefully I can reduce my skin sensitivity, but for now I’ll continue going to bed oily. And if I forget both, there’s always the Benadryl with it’s belated help.

We have an Emergency Medical Technician in the family.

Derek has been studying to become an EMT, and finally took the National Certification Test on Saturday. He passed, and yesterday received his certificate.

The final step before he can actually work is to register with the state and get a license. It may take a few days because they do a background check. Once that’s done he can start applying for a job.

EMTs work in many different places. The first ones that come to mind are a hospital ER and an ambulance or rescue vehicle, but EMTs are also hired to work in casinos, schools, large companies, and sporting events, among other things.

Derek’s not sure in which area he wants to work; they all have advantages and disadvantages. It may come down to who’s hiring.

My wonderful new Windows 7 computer crashed today. I’m not sure what happened, but I think one drive of my Software RAID setup started to fail, and instead of using the good drive to keep things correct, it used the failed drive and started trying to match the good drive to the failed one. All I know is that I have two supposedly mirrored drives that are quite different,and neither one has many of my important files. Windows will barely boot, many things don’t work, and it says it is not a “Genuine” copy.

What a mess! I’m going to have to wipe and reinstall. This time I’m going to use hardware RAID — it’s built into the motherboard, so it shouldn’t be hard.

Meanwhile, in the corruption, most of my data files are gone from both hard drives. All my Thunderbird email files, and most critically all my C++ files that I have spent thousands of hours creating.

Fortunately I set up a Mozy account a few months ago, and it is going to save my sanity.

Mozy is an online back-up utility. Every night around 2:00am all of the important, impossible to replace, files get backed up to Mozy’s server. I have about 26GB up there right now, and when I just checked, all those critical files I was so worried about are as fresh as last night.

Boy I thought that setting up a RAID 1 mirrored system would prevent data loss. It looks like in this case it just made it worse. Hopefully the next time, with hardware RAID, it will do better. But in any event I will continue to use Mozy.