Say What?

My mother's older brother, my uncle Don, aka Tauno, passed away last week. He was 98 years old . He retired from the postal service in 1974 and enjoyed his retirement years in Oklahoma City as a luthier specializing in violins. He turned his garage into his workshop and had it so neatly organized. A button suspended on a string from the rafters told him exactly how far forward he could park his car when the button touched the windshield. There was very little wasted space. He made his first violin at 11. A neighbor had a violin and he took measurements of it by using an arm and a hand to make note of the basic dimensions, then he did what appeared to come naturally to him: he made a violin of his own . He was the go-to guy for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic orchestra for any repairs musicians may have needed. He was also sought out by people throughout the country for his stringed instruments and for his expertise in repairing damaged instruments. Don would occasionally enter ...

I've been avoiding politics here for a while because there's already so much talk of it out there but every now and then I feel the need to go on the record with my thoughts about what's happening in our world. A dozen years ago I was a firm believer in trickle-down economics. It just made good sense. Give corporations a tax break and they'll surely turn around and reinvest those extra dollars in their people. I never factored greed into the equation. But now that we've got a 30-year history of failed trickle-down schemes, it stuns me that any reasonable person could possibly think it deserves another shot. But that's what Republicans have done by signing into law a huge tax cut for corporations that will no doubt leave their upper ranks flush with cash. Oh sure, they gave us peasants a sugar-high of a tax cut as well but it's written with vanishing ink and will disappear after a few years. Meanwhile, our national debt will continue to grow unchecked as th...

Excuse me while I reminisce a little. 42 years ago tonight I was in my first few days of boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago. I remember sitting in my barracks on New Year's Eve 1975 and thinking how a mere three weeks earlier enlisting in the Navy was in no way one of the options I was considering. I had watched nearly all of my friends leave for or enroll in college that fall while I remained behind working factory jobs with no real future plans. I acted on my sister's suggestion and went to speak with a Navy recruiter in Brooklyn Park. Chuck Wilson would shepherd me through the process. Everything happened so quickly after our initial meeting where I took an exam to see if I qualified for any schooling after boot camp. Chuck then scheduled me for a physical examination at a facility in Minneapolis. I remember asking him about how late in the recruiting process could I still back out. He replied that once a person has had their physical he likes ...

I'm 22,029 days old; or said another way:  I'm 60. When my father was this same age it was February 18th, 1986. My mother was the same age on February 25th, 1988. (You can make your own calculations with this calculator .) I sometimes find it interesting to see myself from a different perspective—a perspective where my dad and I are on equal footing with respect to age. It's something that causes me to squint my eyes a little and think hard to recall thoughts of my father from back in the day. My dad and I were alike in a lot of ways but in many more ways we were complete opposites. It wasn't until I was in the Navy and working as a radarman that I learned my dad had held the same position when he was in the Canadian Navy. You would think I would've already known that. I can count on one hand the number of times we sat down and just chatted about life in a meaningful way. I don't think I was the exception among my siblings in this regard but perhaps I was. I...

I've been staying busy down in our glass shop working on building an inventory of miniature stained glass panels/sun-catchers for my Etsy account . I had one sale right away last week when I went live with my virtual storefront but nothing since then. I plan to add some lesser expensive panels to my inventory to entice people to take a chance on someone like me with no track record or reviews to recommend my work. Expand the photo to the left to see a collection of some of my pieces. A few in that mix are copies of designs done by Frank Lloyd Wright and are not for sale. I'm enjoying losing myself in the art form again. I let Pandora supply the background music and can easily spend 6 hours or more at a stretch working on a project. It's relaxing. I'm officially certified to flip Lefse unsupervised! Tammy gets together with her aunt Joyce each year around this time to make several dozen of the Norwegian flatbread. Joyce was here last week but Tammy needed to make e...

Tammy is deep into the series Game of Thrones . Season 5 is sitting on the bench in the laundry room waiting to be returned to the library. She's often up in her craft room watching it while working on projects. Every once in awhile I'll hear her yell out, "Oh noooooooo!!" I know enough about the series to know that many of the favorite characters are killed off when you least expect it. I think I'll pass. Cindy (Tammy's sister) was in town this past weekend and they went to see  Daddy's Home 2. Tammy said it was "hilarious!" I think that's more my speed. We went to Tammy's nephew's home for Thanksgiving and enjoyed ourselves a lot. Brady and Kaylee's 2 little ones provided most of the entertainment. It was nice visiting with everyone (John, Stacy, Rick, Karen, and Eric were also there) while watching the Vikings try and lose a fairly large lead. Kaylee used to be the lead cheerleader for the Vikings until recently and can only...

I've been getting in some nice walks with Toby and Charlie in the cooler weather. I use various Garmin devices to track my activities throughout the week and I recently decided to track my walks with the pups separately rather than mix them in with my solo walks or golfing; mostly so I could more easily see how far we're walking together each week. The results are in—here's a typical week for us. That's 13.45 miles (21.65 km). Or viewed another way . I mentioned in a previous blog post how Toby loves to run. He's not at all an alpha-male but when he's leading us in a run and Charlie tries to take the lead, Toby runs even harder to stay in front, sometimes leaning his body into Charlie to keep him from passing him. I think that's so cute! Tammy and I went to see Le Ride a few nights ago. It played across the country for one night only in select theaters. I was prepared to go alone but Tammy was also interested in seeing it. There was a time when we both u...