News and Views

We found a local restaurant that provides authentic Thanksgiving Day dinners, so Gisele, Devon and I got our ration of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberries and pie. No silky chocolate pie, of course, but apple and pumpkin. Everything was really quite good. Devon said it was his first Thanksgiving dinner in three years. It […]

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Gisele and I are leaving Tuesday to spend three weeks in Taiwan with Devon. Since he can’t come home for Thanksgiving, we will celebrate it there with him. I doubt that we will find any turkey, but a chicken dish in a restaurant will have to do. We wish Derek could come with us, but […]

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I’ve been trying to apply for health insurance on the Federal Exchange (which Arizona uses) since it went online. It’s been a struggle! The website is buggy and not ready for the usage it has been seeing. My big problem was that I started an application for just myself, and then after getting part way […]

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Even though the days are still hot (in the high 90s), nights are getting down into the 60s. I have set up a whole house ventilation system to take advantage of the cool nights. Once the temperature outside drops below the temperature in the house (usually about 80), I turn on two fans in upstairs […]

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I got a phone call the other night that symbolizes how poll results can be misleading. The automated poll asked me two questions: 1) “Are you aware that the Affordable Care Act will raise your insurance costs?” 2) “Do you support the Affordable Care Act?” The pollsters were obviously trying to prime the result of […]

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Here’s an interesting XRay of my foot, post repair. Notice how straight the big toe is, and how the second toe is between the first and third where it belongs. Compare that to the pre-surgery alignment. There are three pieces of metal in that foot now. There is a long rod in the second toe […]

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Bunion surgery went well today, at least according to the surgeon. I can’t tell because my foot is hidden within an inch or more of bandages. Feeling is coming back, but so far there isn’t any pain. The doctor recommended that I take a percocet before bed, because I wouldn’t want full feeling to return […]

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While coming down from 12,000 foot Mather Pass, I was hiking behind Dr. Suuz, and noticed that she seemed to be limping a little. She admitted that her knee was bothering her a little, but she didn’t think it was serious. Just as we were almost off the steep part, she suddenly stumbled and almost […]

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The John Muir Trail can be hiked from north to south (Yosemite to Mt. Whitney), or from south to north (Whitney to Yosemite). Most people do it north to south, as we did, for one very good reason: The elevation profile. As you can see from the graph, the trail starts at 4000 feet elevation […]

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The Perseid meteor shower peaked on our last night in the Sierra. We slept at over 10,000 feet elevation that night and the skies were clear. The Milky Way stretched from mountain-blocked horizon to mountain-blocked horizon, and there were as many stars visible in the sky as I have ever seen. I got up a […]

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