Went to sleep early last night before I got around to writing my gratitude blog. Got up early and thought I doing a morning post about gratitude. Usually by the third sentence, I get a sense of where I am going with my post. That is not happening today, but I do know that I am grateful for several little things this week. Got my car detailed on Tuesday, it is nice & clean on the inside. Had a delicious halibut dinner with Shawna last night. Going to see Robert Cray with Margo at the Woodland Park Zoo this evening. Had dinner with my mother at her new place on Tuesday.There are many good things in my life.
many little blessings
My new hat
I am not a hat person. I have only purchased a couple of wool hats for skiing and one job-required hard hat to go logging.
Today I bought a Gore-Tex rain hat at REI. The hat is for attending an outdoor Robert Cray concert on Thursday evening at the Woodland Park Zoo on Thursday, 6/30. The plan was to buy a hat and a poncho in case of rain during the concert. There is a 60% chance on rain on Thursday. If I stay dry, it will be fine.
Gladys was this incredible staffer at REI that knew her stuff after working there for 22 years. She helped me find a hat and poncho right away. Then we got into shopping for a jacket after I got a retail therapy buzz going!
Turns out that REI is a family affair for employees. I was commending Gladys to the cashier while paying. The cashier was Gladys's daughter who had also worked at REI for years. Good thing I was not saying bad things about Gladys! :)
Along with buying my first ever hat, I also became a life member at REI for $20. I have known of REI since junior high school, but never had a reason to buy anything there before.
REI guarantees their products forever. The rain hat will last me the rest of my life as long as I don't lose it. I have wanted a rain hat for years to cover my head for the minute or two that I am outside when going between my car and a building.
Diversity in Bellevue
- The population of Bellevue is now 41% minorities.
- The downtown area population tripled to 7,000 people in the last decade.
- In 1970, 14% spoke a language other than English at home.
- In 2009, 35% spoke other languages besides English at home.
- 30% of the population is foreign born
- The School District reports there are 84 languages spoken in Bellevue.
- 122363 people lived in Bellevue per the 2010 census.
- Downtown Bellevue is now the second largest city center in Washington State.
- The influx has been primarily Asian that now makes up 28% of the population.
- Most of the Asians are (computer) professionals from India and China working at Microsoft.
That is incredibly rapid change in short period of time. The city management has handled that change incredibly well. 20 years ago, they had the foresight to zone an urban core to keep the office building sprawl in a 10 x 12 block area between i405 and Bellevue Square. The Bellevue Parks Department wins national awards for their programs. Street crime in Bellevue is 2/3rds the national average.
Bellevue drinking water quality is well above State and Federal standards.
Bellevue's diversity is not as obvious as the numbers would suggest. A trip to the mall does not encounter 40% minorities. There are other more subtle signs of diversity such as the number of Asian restaurants and grocery stores. I can't think of a single Asian church in Bellevue. Some churches do have weeknight programs for various ethnic communities such as the 4 Square Church having Russian groups.
The wealth and diversity of Bellevue makes for a lively healthy dynamic city. The downside is that it is more expensive to live in Bellevue than other Seattle suburbs. For over 122,000 people, the quality of life is well worth the expense.
PS: The monthly Bellevue city gov newsletter It's Your City is very informative. I got the diversity facts from the first 2 (of 12) pages from the June 2011 issue.
My Groupons…and other savings
My favorite social event is dining out with a friend at local restaurants. Using coupons for substantial discounts really helps stretch my budget, save money and find new restaurants to go to.
I used to have a Passport Card for several years that offered 2-for-1 entrees at over 100 local restaurants. I got them from a friend that no longer has access to the Passport Cards. Around that time in 2009, Groupon started offering daily deals by email that offered deals such as $40 vouchers at local restaurants that cost $20. The vouchers could only be purchased on the day they were offered and expired after a year or so.
Groupon became wildly popular and was soon followed by several imitators such as Living Social and Get My Perks. In a few short years, the market business using 2-for-1 email coupons has come crashing back to earth. Now deals are typically in the five or ten dollar range gets ten or twenty dollar vouchers. A $5 coupon does not motivate me to commit myself to having to go to a particular restaurant in a finite time frame.
From a restaurant's perspective, I doubt I would even participate in those offers. There seems to be little repeat loyalty and they have to give away $40 worth of food that they might get paid (at most) $10.
One deal I did get was for Derek's Auto Detail where I will get $100 worth of detailing for $50. I left my car at the shop tonight to be detailed tomorrow. I do okay at running my car through the car wash, but vacuuming out the interior doesn't happen nearly as often as could be hoped for.
If the detail job doesn't come out so well, I will likely by new carpet for my car. I am sure to at least order new floormats. My wheelchair beats the crap out of the interior. The headliner has set a new record by a wide margin for how long it lasted. After 3+ years, it finally got its first rip last month. The rip grow a little bit more today. I will buy a new headliner to replace the old one that lasted far longer than expected.
Carrying the message to K-12 counselors
I got to man a booth at the National K-12 counselors event tonight in Seattle. The event was for two hours tonight and goes on through until Tuesday. My booth-mate and I spent time chatting with kind and caring professionals about a 12-step program to help people find sobriety.
I am grateful that I get to be carry the message of recovery instead of being one of those unable to get the message stuck on a painful self-destructive path.
Great customer service
I went shopping for a padlock today at the local Home Depot. It is a giant box store covering several acres with a huge selection of products. The aisles are 20 foot tall racks stuffed full of goods. With 25 aisles, it can be a little intimidating to find small items such as bolts, brushes or locks. To help with that problem, they always have a 'traffic director' standing inside the door to point people to the right aisle.
Today the traffic director missed by a mile, err, aisle. She said "18" and the locks were on 17. Close enough for me to find the padlocks, get a couple of house keys cut, buy a key ring and get a gift card on the way out. Shopping time is usually either a rushed or open-ended experience for me. Today I had 30 minutes to kill before meeting a friend for lunch. Home Depot was an inspired choice for shopping. The clerk that cut my keys told me a couple of jokes, discussed the best local pizza and was both helpful and friendly.
I bought the lock for my mother so she can lock a filing cabinet in her new place. Staff have access to her room when she is not there. Prudence and experience dictate having a locked place to store small valuable items such as her purse or jewelry.
The gift card was the for the Community Relations Director, Sukie Ellis, at my mom's new home—Sunrise Senior living in Bellevue. My mom was discombobulated when she moved into Sunrise and needed someone to help her move out the her old place including packing her clothes, putting things in storage, getting items moved to both the new place & storage, and setting up the new place. Sukie Ellis stepped up to the plate and helped my mom with all that. That was some AWESOME customer service.
The gift card I got at Home Depot was for Sukie. She was busy giving a tour to two local consultants while I was there today that work as advisors (for lack of a better term) helping families find a good match for their aging family members. I knew one of the ladies and told her in no uncertain terms how great I thought Sukie, the rest of the staff and facilities at Sunrise/Bellevue was. Granted, today was only my third trip there. However, after 30 years of paralysis due to a spinal cord injury, I have developed a keen sense of good & bad health care providers.
Sukie did not have time to hear the long version of why I got her a gift card, so I simply gave it to her and told her that I would give her the long version on another day. I have been to Sunrise three times and got four hugs from her. Sukie has played a huge role in helping me develop a better relationship with my mother after not seeing mom for seven years.
I am grateful for great customer service whether it is buying a $4 lock at Home Depot or helping my mother move into an assisted living facility.
Another good day
Today was a good day. The luckiest part of my day was being able to drive 10 miles to get a bolt removed from my tire without getting a flat—was not sure how that was going turnout! I visited with a friend on her lunch break, had lunch at Costco while waiting for the tire to be repaired and/or replaced (it was okay once they pulled the bolt out), got some cat food, kitty litter and groceries while at Costco and then went to see my mother. I gave mom a big bouquet of flowers (note to self, she needs a bigger vase) and chatted with her for an hour.
I gave mom the book Learned Optimism last week. It was nowhere to be found this week. Good thing I bought 4 copies of that book. She moved into an upscale assisted living facility last month. Today I got to hear about things going missing. She has a 4-drawer filing cabinet with a hasp on it, all she needs is a lock to protect her valuables. I will bring her a key-lock tomorrow.
Sandy and I will go out for lunch tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. We have gone out to dinner and a meeting for the last 4 years on Friday nights, but that is not working for us anymore. It will be good to see her.
Summer is here!
Summer finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest after a long wet spring. It officially arrived at 10:16 AM PDT. It has already been summer for 11+ hours! YAY!
I love the long hours of daylight and bright sun with deep blue skies. I am grateful that the earth's elliptical orbit is such that northern winters are closer to the sun and the summers are farther away. That helps make for more modest temperature swings in the Northern Hemisphere.
Warm days in early summer are my favorite days. Today was a perfect day weather-wise in my book.
Inflatable tires
The last time I bought tires for my car, I splurged on a set of 4 Michelin premium tires. I have had the tires for a year and like them. They do what tires are supposed to do—stick to the road and not go flat. Last night on the way home from a short trip to downtown Bellevue, I could hear something clicking and thought that maybe a rock got stuck in the tread.
I forgot about it until running an errand today and hearing the clicking again. When I stopped and checked to see what the problem was, I found a bolt firmly imbedded in the tread of my right front tire. So far the tire is holding air. I will take it to the shop tomorrow and hope that the bolt can be safely removed without having to buy another tire.
My gratitude for things in my life goes up considerably when there is a problem and I get wistful about the good old days before there was a problem. I get flat tires 3-4 times a year, so this is not a unusual event in my life. Usually, the flats are on my wheelchair since I run those tires to the bitter end until they go flat, or cord is showing and the mate to a matched pair has gone flat.
I keep a couple of spare tires around to replace the flats on me wheelchair. That takes about 15 minutes from start to finish with an inflated tire. Fixing the tire on my car will take more time, but perhaps less effort since the guys are the tire shop will have to fix this problem.
Pneumatic tires literally make my life go a lot smoother than solid tires. There is a downside to inflated devices in that they can readily become deflated. Overall, it is well worth the effort for the smooth ride I get from inflated tires.
I am grateful for inflated tires and the modern rubber compounds used to create them.
Father's Day 2011 — my dad
At the end of his life, I was estranged from my father due to his relationships with money and others. That was beyond unfortunate on a variety of levels. On the brighter side…
My father taught me many things while growing up on a farm. I learned how to do all sorts of construction and farm labor ranging from pouring concrete to feeding cows. He taught me about welding, plumbing, fishing, using a transit, navigation, fishing, boating and camping. We went boating or flying in Canada a dozen times before I was 19 years old.
We had incredibly crazy father-son misadventures together. We have been towed to shore in a boat by the coast guard in 3 countries. In hindsight, we could have had some really fantastic times together with lots of love and laughter. He was a somber serious man and so activities were always more of a survival mission than a recreational activity. I have become quite the survivor. Not so good at having fun.
I try to write all, or mostly all, good things in my gratitude posts. It is hard to do with my father do to how much tragedy comes up when I reflect on our relationship. We spent a lot of time together and there were many good parts of our relationship. Yet we still ended up being estranged when he died due to the bad parts of his relationships with money and others. Worse yet, he was a wealthy man with no fiscal need for one-sided financial relationships.
I love my father and am grateful for all he taught me. He achieved a lot more financial success in his life than I will ever come close to doing in my life. There is a good chance that I am happier than he was. I know I have less conflict in my life than he did in his.
My 30 year anniversary of being "born again" with a spinal cord injury
Thirty years ago today, I was paralyzed from the waist down in a logging accident while operating a skidder (like a bulldozer on wheels for collecting logs) when I was 22 years old. Yes, I am 52 now.
There have been many events and adventures in those 30 years, some were good and some were bad. What really matters is that I feel good now and had a nice day today. Gigi and I went to dinner in Snoqualmie Ridge at a nice Italian restaurant called Brunello's. After that, we went to a meeting at Echo Glen which is both a school and kiddie prison. On the way home, we stopped at Whole Foods to get some milk and a dessert to celebrate my having made it 30 years. It was a good day.
SR is unlike most other towns. Weyerhaeuser scalped several square miles on a ridge above the town of Snoqualmie and built an instant town. It is the latest design in suburban villages with small lots and 2-story houses. The houses are one of 3 or 4 basic patterns. One feature that helped break up the repeating housing plan a lot was they put in a variety of good-size bushes and small trees in each yard making all the houses look different. The roads are windy and loopy and confusing. I like to think of myself as a good navigator. I was going to go one block out of the way to get back on the main thoroughfare. 15 minutes later, we had to ask a kid on the sidewalk how to get the heck out of the maze.
Brunello's was a nice restaurant with great food and a quiet ambiance. It was also a bit strange to me in that it felt like somebody had dragged a giant inflatable town to the middle of nowhere, unrolled it, and inflated it up last year. That feeling will go away in a few years. The food was good. I had lobster ravioli and Gigi had carpaccio with penne pasta.
I bought a big bag of Rainier cherries at a roadside stand on the way to Echo Glen. I am home now and it is time to watch DVDs. The first movie will be Brazil with Robert DeNiro. Life is good.
I am grateful for the blessings in my life today. I have learned many lessons about spirituality and humility since I was paralyzed 30 years ago. They have made my life better than it was.
My sister Karen
My sister Karen is five years older than me and lives in Clifton Beach, Queensland, Australia. She is building a new home on a hill above the beach. The Coral Sea with the Great Barrier Reef are one km east of her. It is paradise for beach lovers and scuba divers. As a bonus, they are 40 km SSE of the Daintree Rainforest Park.
In the late 1990s, I was thoroughly confused and had completely lost my way in life. I had checked in a psych ward to see if they had any better ideas than committing suicide. They suggested I call my sister and ask her for help getting my life together. Karen stepped up to the plate in a big way. She sent me off to drug rehab, bought me a condo with a doorman so I would have a safe place to live where addicts could not simply walk up to my door. At the time, it was living proof that misery loves company—they knew I was trying to quit and kept coming by with drugs to derail my sobriety.
We lived together for a year in a larger condo in the same building. It was the nicest bedroom I have ever had. I had a fantastic view of Mt Rainier from my 16th floor sliding glass door of a bedroom window. The bathroom had a giant soaking tub and a drive-in shower that worked great for my wheelchair.
Since then, we did not see that much of each other besides the occasional meal together. We have always stayed in touch by trading emails. She has lived in Sydney, Australia full-time for several years and just moved to Queensland last month.
Karen is married to her second husband, Frank. He is a really nice man and they have a great relationship building a life together in the Outback. (Ok, it is not really the Outback, but it is definitely in the way far back of beyond!)
As a way of showing my gratitude for her love and support, I now get to be there others that need love and support, namely Dan H. and my mother Beverly. Helping them is an indirect way of repaying my sister for all the help she so freely gave me.
As I was telling my doctor today, I would not be alive now if it had not been for my sister's help in getting my life together. As you might imagine, I am really grateful for the love and support she has shared with me over the years. I love her very much.
Being white in America
Blogging early today after missing yesterday. I get a handful of political emails that I read in the morning. Most want me to click a link sending some boilerplate text to politicians for what gets labeled as left-wing or liberal causes, which I see as libertarian , and then hit me up for money after clicking on the link. I clink the links a couple of times a week. Tried to give money earlier week to a group that duals with the FCC by fighting things such as: AT&T buying T-mobile creating effectively a duopoly for cell service in America; or barring Verizon from blocking apps on Android phones per Verizon's 4G licensing agreement with the FCC.
One email with a refreshingly different twist is Dr. Boyce Watkins: Your Black World. All of the stories deal with events involving black people in America getting abused in a way that rarely happens to rich white people. Some are non-criminal events such as Lebron James being abused by sportswriters as a loser because he played on a team that was only second-best in the NBA and did not win a championship. Many articles deal with black Americans and the criminal justice system. One (of many) black kid in Texas was wrongfully convicted of murder only to be proven innocent and released 18 years later. White folks get a check for $$$ when this happens to them, this black guy got charged by the TX Attorney General for failure to pay child support while locked in prison for a crime he did not commit. These stories rarely show-up in the white-owned mainstream media, but happen every day in Your Black World.
As a person who uses a wheelchair for mobility, I face horrific discrimination every day being blocked by stairs, steps, a lack of access and statistically low employment opportunities. At least I don't have to worry about the cops arresting me every time I see one. I have seen many black guys in wheelchairs, I can only think of one that was a part of the working middle class in America. Most of the black guys in wheelchairs I have seen appeared to be quasi-homeless on the streets of Seattle.
I am grateful to be a white guy in America (and sad that skin color/culture make such a big difference in socioeconomic status).
Amazon.com
I have bought stuff off Amazon sporadically since 2003. Last August, I paid the $75ish to upgrade to an Amazon Prime account to get free shipping. I immediately bought a bunch of stuff to help a friend and then slowed way down. Now I have become acclimated to the convenience of 3 AM shopping and love it.
Last week I was halfway through Learned Optimism when I decided to share it with a friend I would see later that day. I ordered 3 more copies and gave her my copy. Soon I will have more copies to share with others and get to finish the second half.
Upon reflection, I realized the books should be here by now. Checking the tracking, I see that it was delivered on Tuesday. hmmm. The shipper, Dynamex, did not leave a note on my door letting me know it was at the office. That does not bode well. No problem, Amazon customer service is awesome. They will take care of it if the package is lost.
I am grateful for Amazon's convenient shopping with great prices and free shipping on the "Prime" tagged products. I previously posted my thoughts about their CS, but I am still grateful for the great service.
Voice-mail
I have had voice-mail for half my life. It is an important part of my telecommunications methodology for when I don't feel like answering the phone or am not home. I only get, at most, a handful of phone calls each day. Somehow this weekend I got 4 vmail messages. One message was incredibly kind and sweet thanking me for my help and wisdom that went on for 3 minutes. I would not have heard that without vmail.
Vmail devices over the years have gone from: single-cassette tape; dual cassette tape; digital answering machines; and for at least a dozen of the 25 years with vmail telco CO hardware.
I am grateful for vmail. It is still my favorite telephonic accessory beyond POTS/land-line after all these years.
Grateful to be okay
Lacking a specific subject for tonight's post, I will go with being happy that there are no crisis going on in my life and that I am doing okay. I have working on optimism this week. That has helped a lot. I am quite pleasantly surprised by how malleably my mind still is at 52. I have been able to get to a much more optimistic perspective with a few simple tools (and a preceding dozen years of dedicated self-improvement).
Tonight at my home group which is a step study meeting, I had the modest epiphany that doing step 3 could be construed as making a decision to be happier, worry less and let my HP fret the details. I used to know that things would never work out for me—and with that attitude, they never did work out well. Now I believe that things are and will be okay. It is a good feeling.
12 years in Alanon recovery
There is a once-a-month MESH (Members share Experience, Strength and Hope) Alanon speaker meeting in Shoreline/N.Seattle on the second Saturday that gives out 'coins' to celebrate the number of years in Alanon. Most Alanon meetings don't do that. Gigi and I went to the MESH meeting tonight. We both got 12 year coins. Her ex-bf was also there, he got a 16 coin.
I have learned a lot about having better relationships with others thanks to my Alanon program. My life is much better now that I have fantastically improved my abilities for setting & holding healthy boundaries with others. Still plenty of room for improvement, but at least those boundaries are at a functional level now. It was not always that way.
My ability to help others has also changed from horribly dysfunctional to reasonably useful. It used to be that I would figuratively pinch someone's arm if they told me they had a sore knee. It would take some of their focus off their knee...but they would be in even more pain and pissed off at me for being a jerk. Now I can empathize with them, express concern and possibly offer to help if it seems needed without suggesting a variety of obvious treatments that they undoubtedly already figured out for themselves such as put ice on their sore knee or go to a doctor.
I am grateful for my Alanon recovery. It is a wonderful resource when family of origin issues suddenly arise that would have distressed me in the past.
New pants
For the last ten years, I have worn the same size black Creekwood pants. They are the same price online or at a Big & Tall men's store. Last week, they were on sale for 20% off. I bought four pairs to stick in a drawer until I need them. I took out my last new pair last Sunday to wear to a wedding. It will likely be a year or more before I finally start wearing the last pair from my latest purchase.
It makes for a simple wardrobe! The only question I have when deciding which pants to wear is "should it be a newer pair or older pair that I put on today?" The difference between new vs old pants is how much the black dye has faded.
I am grateful for my new pants that were delivered by FedEx to my door today. It is good to have the money & space to buy & store what I need when it is on sale, especially when it is conveniently delivered to my door in a timely fashion.
More time at the WSR
Blog postings can be sequentially challenged in that this is the top post on the blog when I load it, but builds on previously posted material. This is another post on my prison meeting experience at the WSR.
I love my 2nd Thursday of the month meetings at the WSR. Leslie, Lisa and I meet at the Alano Club and carpool to the WSR. Tonight's carpool conversation on the way to the meeting was about their jobs and my readings from Martin Seligman from his book Learned Optimism.
The meeting topic is always from the Daily Reflections. Today was about living one day at a time. I discussed learning to be (much more) mindful as I go through the day. As always, it was a great meeting with 5 outside members and 6 inmates in attendance. One inmate was new to the meeting and did not share. I spoke with him after the meeting. He sounded a lot like me when I first started going to meetings 12 years ago. It gave me chills to listen to him talk about how 'terminally unique' he felt from everyone else at the WSR. We had a great talk on the way home after getting loaded up on recovery energy at the meeting.
My optimism is growing by leaps and bounds. It is a change in beliefs and behavior for me to cook using a recipe. I was optimistic that it would come out at least okay. I tried a new recipe tonight for poached chicken. It was delicious. I will try the sous-vite method with other foods.
I am grateful for a good day today.
Word processing and page layout software
Since I first learned to write in elementary school, I have always had poor penmanship. In hindsight with what I know now, I was not mindful of what I was doing. In other words, I was too 'destination' oriented and not focusing enough on the process/journey. Also, aside from looking a lot like my father, the one family quirk that I have is my paternal grandmother's handwriting. I press harder on the paper while writing the same chicken-scratch penmanship as granny had. Taking after my grandma is the best part of my penmanship, she was a kind woman and I loved her very much.
As a kid in school, my writing composition was judged on my poor penmanship instead of my writing content in yet another example of form over substance in our schools. Going back to college in my twenties, I was in the enviable position of having a serious technological advantage over my classmates since I was one of the very few students that had an IBM PC. That allowed me to focus on composition and communication while letting go of my penmanship problems. Thanks to the miracle of word processing with WordStar 3.3, correcting mistakes and editing my papers was vastly easier than re-writing an entire paper or even one page. My writing jumped two letter grades from C- work to A- work from high school to 5 years later after I enrolled UC Santa Barbara.
Nowadays, I like my writing enough to be able to blog about gratitude nearly every day. Never saw that coming when I was a kid. I hated writing back then. I have created dozens, if not hundreds of papers, on a volunteer basis for community organizations. The papers, flyers and brochures are good enough that they let me make the next one after viewing my last creation.
My current project is to create (paper) bookmarkers to be distributed at all 43 King County Library System (KCLS) libraries. I created an example last month, then showed it to 50ish people for feedback and their support. The best suggestion was to print it on one side of the page to save 50% on printing costs compared with double-sided printing.
Now I get to create a 2.2" x 8.5" layout, five to the page, to be distributed at the libraries. In one sense, this will be my largest printing project ever. I will print 5 reams of paper resulting in 3500 bookmarks making a stack almost five feet tall. Past printing projects have used twice as much paper and money, but this will be most 'pieces' of printed material in my experience.
I am grateful for modern word processing & desktop publishing software and my skills in composing documents. Thanks to PCs and printers, I am now at least a functional if not a good writer. It is also good to live five miles from the MS company store. Xmas gifts from my MS friends tend to come in a box about 12" x 10" x 3".
District Meetings
I have been going to the local 12-step District Meetings (DMs) for the last 11 years as a way giving back what was so freely given to me. That is also known as doing service work or in more general terms volunteering.
When I started attending the DMs, there were six of us at the meetings. We did not get a lot down that first year. We did not even have a Gratitude Dinner that year. Since then, I have reserved a community center every year on February 1st for a November Gratitude Dinner. I have never served as chair of the Gratitude Dinner, others have always done a great job of organizing the dinner setup, food and cleanup.
Since 2000, the DM has grown from 6 to 25ish people at the meetings. Most of the standing service committees are chaired with active volunteers. Terms of service are two year commitments. Since initially attending the DM as General Service Representative (GSR) I have chaired three committees, served as treasurer, (note-taking) secretary, and twice as Intergroup Liaison.
Most people come and go as GSRs. A few stick around to serve as committee chairs. Typically someone with my experience would move on to the Area level of Western Washington. I don't see an need to drive a hundred miles when there is an unmet need to help carry the message at local schools, libraries, charities, businesses, etc.
Tonight was our June DM. We are going to celebrate 20 years as a District in August at a picnic with the local intergroup. The previous District was split into five new Districts 20 years ago in an effort to keep the Districts down to a more manageable size. For our part at the picnic, we will give out free beverages while thanking members for their support.
My next project is to print off thousands of 2" x 8.5" bookmarkers printed with contact information on them to be given out at all 42 libraries in King County. We have to create a bundle for each library and then drop them all off at the KCLS distribution center. It will take two stops to pass out thousands of pieces of literature throughout the county. I am optimistic that this will work well.
I love the laughter and enthusiastic argy-bargy of our District meetings. We are doing a good job of trying to carry the message to our local community.
Modern residential fans
At long last we are having a heat wave in Western Washington. It has been over 70° for 3 days in a row!
In anticipation of this summer's toasty temps, I bought a fan from Home Depot two weeks ago. One out of five buttons did not work right out of the box, so I took it back. Went with the sure thing and ordered a fan from Costco.
As a child on the farm, I remember looking for a fan and finding one from the 40's or 50's that
was all metal. The steel fan blades looked like they designed to star in a gory horror movie. The fan shroud mesh was not small enough to stop fingers from accidentally being chopped up into tiny bits if the fan was accidentally grabbed while it was running.
My new fan is a turbine design that looks like a 4' tall vented cylinder. It came with a remote control and a baby 14" turbine fan. Both fans have multiple power settings and oscillate. They are incredibly quiet and deliver a soft steady breeze. Almost everything is made out of plastic.
A wonderful wedding
I went to a outdoor wedding today for Dave and Vibeke at the Lake Wilderness Lodge near Maple Valley. It was a perfect day for an outdoor wedding with a slight overcast and 75°.
This was a repeat marriage for both of them. Their kids are all adults now. They were all included in the wedding ceremony in roles such as best man, walking the bride out, singing a love song a capella and more. The lodge faces south across Lake Washington with Mt Rainier as the perfect backdrop across the lake.
It was a beautiful wedding that was a fantastic fit for the happy couple. Vibeke is a high-powered bundle of creative energy. The music playing during the ceremony was inspired ranging from Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow to the Beatles Here Comes the Sun to what Dave's daughter sang.
After the wedding, there were short stories/speeches by friends and family members welcoming and congratulating new relatives and friends to the new meta-family. The joy radiating from the adult children as they their new step-parent was a thing of love and beauty. It was one of the best, if not the best, wedding I have ever been to in terms of being a perfect fit for the new couple, family and friends.
I am grateful for having been invited to Vibeke and Dave's wedding, for the perfect weather and to Mary Jane for going to the wedding with me. It was a wonderful scenic drive up the Cedar River valley through Black Daimond and back down the Green River valley past my childhood home.
My Titanium Wheelchair
Being grateful for a wheelchair is a mixed blessing. I am grateful for having a very expensive state-of-the-art lightweight wheelchair. There is a definite downside to having to use a wheelchair for mobility for the last 30 years.
This is the best wheelchair I have ever had by far. My last wheelchair was the same model as my current chair lacking two key accessories: plastic spokes and a semi-plush padded fabric backrest. Twelve plastic spokes sounds a LOT weaker than 36 steel spokes like in a standard bicycle wheel setup. In the past, I would have a broken steel spoke about once a month and have to rotate wheels to be serviced at a local bike shop (true-ing spoked wheels is an art form). In the 18 months, I have had to replace one plastic spoke.
Plastic is a bit of a misnomer. The spokes are more like Kevlar or some such hi-tech material. The spokes contain dozens of tiny filaments like thin fishing line wrapped in a protective sleeve with a plug on one end and threads for spoke tensioning on the far side. The spokes are somehow magically self-adjusting since I have not had to adjust them to true my wheels.
The backrest upholstery is nice. It has to be extremely strong and durable to support my 300 pounds of mostly upper body mass.
I don't know that I love my wheelchair. I would greatly miss it if I had to regress back to a 50 lb hospital chair or even one of the aluminum "sport chairs" that I have had in the past.
Twelve Years of Alanon Meetings
I started going to Alanon meetings 12 years ago in June of 1999. I had never felt so at home from the very start as I felt at that first meeting. I can't remember what they talked about or what I said at the end of the meeting when I got a chance to share, but I will always remember bawling my eyes out from the pain of alcoholic relationships and getting some relief.
Costco Concierge Service for electronic devices
Costco is my vendor of choice for purchasing electronic devices. Costco prices are very good, but usually not the lowest cost. What makes Costco my favorite place to buy things is their Concierge Service (CCS) which provides front-line tech support for the all of the electronic devices they sell such as laptops & TVs.
I bought an HP laptop from Costco last year to use as an internet TV controller (like a cable box for the internet) and to play DVDs from Netflix. The drive died once last year and again tonight. In both cases, a single call to the CCS with virtually no time spent on hold waiting for customer service resolved the solution to being an RMA back to HP for repair.
Calling HP directly for customer service is a nightmare of telephone menu trees and long hold times. Costco Executive members automatically get a warranty of two years or more on electronic products—which they sell at Best Buy et al for an additional $50 or $100 without the CCS level of customer service.
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