Good news--Bad News: Gas and Trucks

Royal Farms on Telegraph Road
Odenton, MD

I was in awe yesterday as we drove past a local Royal Farms gas station and I saw that the price of regular gas had fallen to $2.099, which is really $2.10, per gallon. 

Queue the party!

I remember when gas hit $4.00 per gallon that we never dreamed of seeing prices this low again and yet, this is now the second time that prices have fallen back to reasonable levels. I expect to see gas below $2/gallon soon!

But, s is the way with life lately, with every snippet of good news comes some bad news. 

My truck broke severely yesterday. Ugh! The upper drivers side ball joint separated from the control arm and so the truck is both not drivable and also not moveable! Thankfully, it happened as I was backing into the driveway after I had completed a run to the local landfill. I was able to get the truck out of the way and I soon determined that the repair was beyond the few short hours I had available. Additionally, I was going to need to get parts shipped in.

The seriousness of the situation became clear as I was jacking the truck up, but the wheel remained firmly on the ground. No, I didn't take a picture of it.

It is not pretty, although, it seems very repairable. It is going to need a tow to the local repair shop, which I will be calling in the morning. 

All the money I was going to save on gas prices not goes into repairs!

And that, is the good and bad news for this Sunday morning.

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

Summer's Last Weekend

It kind of snuck up on me, this, the last weekend of summer.

View of the Covered Pool with the
Vestiges of Summer

I have been so busy enjoying the pleasant evening temperatures and humidity that I had forgotten that summer officially ends with the vernal equinox on Wednesday morning. Summer slips out quietly while we are sleeping--an almost fitting end for a memorable summer, leaving during the night not wanting to linger or get caught up in a long good-bye. 

Summer's demise comes with the completion of numerous projects, not the least of which was closing the pool. Except for a few peripheral tasks, the pool was successfully closed Thursday evening. 

But even tough it is covered, the scene around the pool reveals the lingering effects of the summer--the blooming geranium, the still green ornamental grasses, and the golf target standing tall in the yard. These will soon be gone and with the gathering autumn, my near weekly golf outings will become less frequent. The desire to get home after a day of work and get to the course will eventually evaporate as sunset continues to creep forward and then daylight savings time ends.

What a Picnic Table Looks Like After
it is Decomposed

As summer slips into autumn, there will be trips to the landfill to remove the broken and no longer functioning furniture and equipment that have collected during the busy and often frenetic summer. The first trip is today to remove, among many other items, the abandoned picnic table which has been sitting just off the yard for more years than I can count. It was heavy and needed some work to allow it to fit into the truck. 

Even as autumn arrives, I will still be dealing with the remnants of summer. Raking leaves and dreaming of golfing or being on a beach somewhere. 

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

My Take: Republican Debate

I watched some of the debate the other evening.

Eleven presidential hopefuls standing in front of America trying to sell us on why any of them should be President.

My take? I'm not sure that any of them have what it takes to lead the nation. 

The thing that bothered me the most is their intolerance. they all want to make the country over in their own image and do not seem tolerant of diversity or people who think differently. 

I heard at least two of the governments extol the virtues of what they had accomplished in their states and indicate that it should be easy to implement their view nationwide. 

What if, the rest of the nation doesn't want their view?

Individual states need the right to determine their courses. Each of the candidates, I believe, fail to understand the concept of States Rights and all apparently want to expand the oppressive power of the Federal Government.

Who won the debate? No one.

So, I am still waiting for the right person to step forward.

Soon?

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

My Take: Paranoia doesn't Make it Better

"Out of an abundance of caution" and "Err on the side of caution."

Ahmed Mohammed

How about the words, "zero tolerance?"

What do those words really mean?

They mean someone's Civil Rights are about to be violated because someone else made an uninformed accusation that people in charge feel they must do something about even though there is no evidence to support a criminal act or misdeed.

We are living in an era of rampant paranoia stoked by the threat of unrealistically punitive lawsuits for making a bad decision. 

Ahmed Mohammed with clock and sister

I offer the case of a 14 year old boy who brought a homemade clock to school in Irving, Texas, as an example. Ahmed Mohamed was led from school in handcuffs the other day for bringing a creatively designed homemade clock to school. 

Why was he really arrested? No one will likely ever know, but I suspect there was a bit of racial bias involved.

As I read his story, I was struck by some of the statements, especially by one police office who said that the clock looked like a bomb. If it was a bomb, where was the explosive? A police officer should know better. 

But what else concerns me about this situation? Ahmed was questioned by police without either his parents or a legal representative being present. That is not supposed to happen to a juvenile, especially when the results are likely to be that they will be handcuffed and walked out of school in front of the entire student body.

Here's hoping that the city and school district of Irving, Texas pay dearly for their uninformed paranoia which resulted in a significant breach of Ahmed's civil rights!

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you." -Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

Get them done before winter

Freshly Painted Column

We are in the end-of-summer push to get as many outdoors projects completed as possible before the onset of frigid temperatures.

Last evening, we finished painting the porch.

Yes, it doesn't seem like monumental accomplishment, however, we have been trying to get the porch painted for four years. It was one of those noxious projects that neither Chris nor I desired to tackle. 

Well, A Small Project Left to complete

And now it is done, mostly. There are a few things left to clean up to make it perfect, like repainting the doorbell plate.

I wrote about lists in a blog titled "To do" or "Not to Do?" They don't work well for me.

I am glad this project was finally removed from our To-Do list. 

Next up? 

Pool closing, beginning Thursday evening. 

Isn't autumn great? And it is still really summer, it just feels like autumn with 50 degree morning temperatures.

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

Tales of Horror: New Appliance Installation

The phrase, "No good deed goes unpunished" has been playing over in my head a lot during the past few days.

It seems as if for every positive action there is an equal and negative reaction. 

Yesterday, for instance, our new dishwasher was being delivered and installed. The installation was planned for a day when Chris would be off from work due to a holiday and everything looked good. . . 

Until 2:15 PM, when I received a panicked call at work that the new dishwasher was too big and we were going to have to take the floor up to get it into the space. Ugh!

I raced home and the installer had started the task of removing the flooring, except that he was using a saw!!!!! Nooooooooo. The floor needed to be taken up one board at a time so that it could be reinstalled. 

The situation was a bit tense and I forgot to take a picture of the magnitude of the mess with the ripped up flooring and the new and improved dishwasher barely sliding into place. But it did.

Fully Installed Dishwasher
 with Restored Flooring

Once the dishwasher we installed and the mess cleaned, my task was to reinstall the flooring. Important safety tip--keep extra pieces of flooring around from the installation! I knew I had some extra pieces from the installation many years ago and so I was not too concerned that some of the existing pieces had been trashed. 

After about two hours of work, the final product looks good as new! Thank goodness a good friend taught me how to install wood floors a few years ago and so I knew some of the tricks to get it tight.

Good deed? New dishwasher for Chris
Punishment? Salvaging the flooring
End result? All good!

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD 

Monday Musings - September 14, 2015

1. September is almost half over and I was thinking that it was just getting started.

Ocean City, MD, Beach
September 7, 2015

2. The pool will be closed for the season by this time next week. That is an incredibly sad prospect. But temperatures are falling and so are the leaves.

3. Last week I was walking on the beach in Ocean City enjoying the Labor Day holiday. It is a great memory.

4. With two games remaining today, the first week of the NFL season will draw to a close. I can't believe I watched almost nine hours of football yesterday. There is only time for a quick breath, however, because the whole thing begins again on Thursday.

5. With the worldwide concern about the immigration crisis in the Middle East, especially Syria, wouldn't it be amazing if the the UN could find a way to bring peace to the region so that the displaced persons could resume their lives rather than having to move to a strange land?

6. Ran across Golden Crisp cereal in a store in Ocean City. Although I never ate it, it brought back memories of the kids eating it--and they loved it.

7. The Orioles actually won a series over the weekend, taking 2 of 3 games from the division leading Kansas City Royals. There are 20 games left in the Orioles' season. They need to win 14 to finish with a non-losing record. Mathematically, they are still in the hunt for a Wild Card post-season spot. 

8. This is the day, in 1901, that President McKinley died of complications following the gunshot wound he received on September 6th. You may recall that the mountain named for him in Alaska was recently restored to its rightful native name of Mount Denali. McKinley's death brought Teddy Roosevelt into the White House as President.

9. Recipe for chaos: ten adults, three boys under the age of eleven, five dogs, and a football party.

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

Saturday Football in the Rain

It hadn't rained significantly in our area since August 28th--until yesterday when Jackson's GORC Wildcats Football Team was scheduled to play its third game of the young season. Jax is on the 80lb Central Team.

Halftime Sideline for the GORC Wildcats

And then the rains came down, as they did for most of the day.

The image is from halftime, but the score on the scoreboard was the same at the end of the game with the Wildcats prevailing against both the other team and the weather 12-0. The team is now 2-1 on the young season and both wins were by shutout.

At least the temperatures were in the high 60's and low 70's during the game. But it was still cool and damp and even I took refuge under an umbrella for some of the game. 

Jax in the Rain

Youth sports is where learning about team work and contributing to the overall effort begins. Jax had a couple of great blocks and on the second, and final touchdown of the day, it was his block against two would-be tacklers that allowed the running back to score. 

Standing in the rain watching football on a September Saturday, I guess that is what it is all about.

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

Patriots and Patriot Day: Reflection

Yesterday was a solemn day of remembrance. Officially, it was National Day of Service and Remembrance of those who lost their lives during the September 11, 2001 attacks. 

It, as a day, does not come with the distinction of a national holiday along with time off to reflect, but rather, it is a day to pause and remember in our homes and places of work as we are going through our lives. That is how the day happened, right in the middle of life.

I find it hard to believe that 14 years have passed already since that day. Many of us pause to remember where we were those short few years ago, but there is already a generation of Americans who were not even born yet, or were far too young to recall the terror of that day and the time. 

And we must remember. We must not forget. 

Every year as we pause on September 11th at 8:46 EDT, we should rededicate ourselves to the Patriot Spirit and put service before self, even if only for one day. I hope you did, yesterday.

And maybe again today.

And tomorrow.

Think of how our country and our world would be changed!

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

Slow Down in the Fast Lane of Life

Racing out of the gym after some uninspiring racquetball early yesterday morning I realized that I had forgotten something that I needed to take to work and that would force me to detour back home to get it before pointing my car towards the place where I spend 8 hours or every week day.

Not the Clouds I Saw Yesterday

I was frustrated that I had been so forgetful.

The total added time to my daily trek was going to be all of 15 minutes! But it seemed that it was an important 15 minutes. I tried not to be too upset about the detour, but I hate forgetting things.

As it turned out, I was rewarded for my forgetfulness by a spectacular display of the rising sun and the clouds which greeted me as I made my way to work. It was a stunning sight, big puffy clouds with pink highlights. 

I wanted to take a picture, but it is really tough to take a picture while driving on a jam packed, morning rush highway. Being a safe and rational driver overcame my desire to give it a shot. But I enjoyed the morning for the better part of my trip because I drive east and the clouds were right in front of me.

I was rewarded for slowing down and taking a moment to look skyward.

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD