Friday, January 22, 2010
Vintage Outer Banks pictures
Uncle Jack discovered Outer Banks Vintage Scrapbook on Facebook the other day and he hasn't had time for anything else since. Fascinating pictures. Check it out at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=233505839903
Monday, January 18, 2010
Football highlights
Uncle Jack spent most of the weekend watching NFL playoff games. As a bona fide high school graduate he is not proud of wasting so much time this way but has to confess that the presence of a 52 inch Samsung flat screen HDTV in his living room has had a powerful impact on his behavior. Being able to see every aspect of the game up close in sharp detail and repeated a half-dozen times from different angles is a temptation he simply cannot resist. Twelve hours after the last game ended Sunday night he can barely recall who played whom but he can tell you he enjoyed every minute of his descent into what Mencken would have called "boobosity" (or worse).
Brain damage is not confined to the playing field on occasions like this. Uncle Jack has never suffered a real concussion but after being beaten about the head by commercials for the better part of two days he thinks he knows how it must feel. He herewith nominates the inventor of the TV mute switch for the next Nobel Peace Prize.
He is not sure if NFL games are broadcast anywhere else in the world but he couldn't help wondering what people in other countries might conclude about us after watching a game or two. He made a short list of reasonable conclusions they might come to, to wit:
l. We love violence. Not only is professional football one of the most brutal spectacles in all of "sport", but the enthusiastic response of "fans" (short for fanatics, remember) to particularly egregious examples of mayhem is scary. Observing the intrinsic barbarity of the game itself coupled with endless commercials for violent movies and TV shows, a non-American viewer might reasonably conclude that we get our kicks from something more than just champagne.
2. American advertisers are apparently allowed to lie through their teeth. Every purveyor of automobile insurance cannot offer the lowest rates, but they all say they do. (Uncle Jack once took the Geico test and found that if he switched from U.S.A.A. to Geico his insurance would cost nearly $400 more). Not every cellphone company can offer the best nationwide service but they all claim to. All but one are lying. Did Howard Stern " change radio forever"? Come on.
3. We will apparently eat anything if it's cheap enough and somebody else will cook it for us. Most of the products offered by the likes of Taco Bell, Domino's, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway and McDonalds are positively revolting to a health foodie like Uncle Jack. Judging from the popularity of American fast food in other countries, however, his opinion is not universally shared.
Uncle Jack was happy to learn that thanks to "Pepsi Throwback" he can once again rot his teeth will real sugar instead of corn syrup should he choose to do so. He was also delighted to find out that if he ever needs to pull a large paper mache boulder out of his yard all he needs is a GMC pickup. Presumably the Ford-150 (best-selling pickup for 33 years) is not up to the job. Will Uncle Jack ever "taste greatness" in a can of Miller Lite? Will anybody?.
Three more games to go. He wouldn't miss them for anything.
Brain damage is not confined to the playing field on occasions like this. Uncle Jack has never suffered a real concussion but after being beaten about the head by commercials for the better part of two days he thinks he knows how it must feel. He herewith nominates the inventor of the TV mute switch for the next Nobel Peace Prize.
He is not sure if NFL games are broadcast anywhere else in the world but he couldn't help wondering what people in other countries might conclude about us after watching a game or two. He made a short list of reasonable conclusions they might come to, to wit:
l. We love violence. Not only is professional football one of the most brutal spectacles in all of "sport", but the enthusiastic response of "fans" (short for fanatics, remember) to particularly egregious examples of mayhem is scary. Observing the intrinsic barbarity of the game itself coupled with endless commercials for violent movies and TV shows, a non-American viewer might reasonably conclude that we get our kicks from something more than just champagne.
2. American advertisers are apparently allowed to lie through their teeth. Every purveyor of automobile insurance cannot offer the lowest rates, but they all say they do. (Uncle Jack once took the Geico test and found that if he switched from U.S.A.A. to Geico his insurance would cost nearly $400 more). Not every cellphone company can offer the best nationwide service but they all claim to. All but one are lying. Did Howard Stern " change radio forever"? Come on.
3. We will apparently eat anything if it's cheap enough and somebody else will cook it for us. Most of the products offered by the likes of Taco Bell, Domino's, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Subway and McDonalds are positively revolting to a health foodie like Uncle Jack. Judging from the popularity of American fast food in other countries, however, his opinion is not universally shared.
Uncle Jack was happy to learn that thanks to "Pepsi Throwback" he can once again rot his teeth will real sugar instead of corn syrup should he choose to do so. He was also delighted to find out that if he ever needs to pull a large paper mache boulder out of his yard all he needs is a GMC pickup. Presumably the Ford-150 (best-selling pickup for 33 years) is not up to the job. Will Uncle Jack ever "taste greatness" in a can of Miller Lite? Will anybody?.
Three more games to go. He wouldn't miss them for anything.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Fun at the hospital
Uncle Jack had his annual heart check-up a couple of weeks ago, his first at Johns Hopkins Medical Center after seven trips to see a couple of different cardiologists at Duke. It was the Duke doctors who first diagnosed his heart condition as something called "cardiomyopathy" which he understands to be a kind of umbrella term for situations in which the heart is not pumping a normal amount of blood into the arteries.
Uncle Jack's problem was revealed by the first of numerous "echocardiograms" (one each year for the past eight) and his condition has been monitored by use of that device ever since. He has been taking a couple of medications during this time, getting regular exercise and eating sensibly and the "echos" have consistently shown improvement in his heart function, much to his delight.
An echocardiogram is a fairly simple procedure involving a technician with cold fingers moving a small transponder around from one place to another on the subject's chest and back to obtain a computerized picture of what is going on in the heart area. It's "quick and dirty" but it usually provides a sufficient amount of information for the cardiologist to tell what's going on in there.
His new doctor, a distinguished heart surgeon named Stuart Russell, was not entirely satisfied with his last "echo", however, so he set Uncle Jack up for an MRI which would give him a much clearer picture of his heart and surrounding tissue. He reported to the MRI facility in the old Johns Hopkins Hospital building at 5 p.m. last evening and at the ripe old age of 79 underwent his first bout of Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
It was a trip. By the time it was over he felt like he had just appeared in an episode of "Star Wars", surrounded as he was by some of the most exotic machinery he has ever interacted with. The MRI machine is essentially a big round magnet into which he was rolled on a flat platform after being strapped in and hooked up to a dozen wires. Inside the magnet his face was perhaps two inches from the top surface which at first produced strong feelings of claustrophobia which he dealt with by shutting his eyes and keeping them shut for most of the half-hour it took to complete the procedure.
"Take a breath and hold it--------now breathe." This mantra, repeated dozens of times by the technician, became exceedingly boring after the first five minutes but the machine itself provided some entertainment by emitting a variety of honks, squeaks, buzzes, hums and clicks as it did its expensive thing. As one would expect from the best hospital in the U.S. the entire procedure from scheduling to completion was carried out with a high level of professionalism. The scan was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and that is precisely the time he was rolled into the monster machine. Lucky for Uncle Jack this splendid hospital is only ten minutes by Mini from his condo which will come in handy when he gets the bill and suffers his first heart attack.
Uncle Jack's problem was revealed by the first of numerous "echocardiograms" (one each year for the past eight) and his condition has been monitored by use of that device ever since. He has been taking a couple of medications during this time, getting regular exercise and eating sensibly and the "echos" have consistently shown improvement in his heart function, much to his delight.
An echocardiogram is a fairly simple procedure involving a technician with cold fingers moving a small transponder around from one place to another on the subject's chest and back to obtain a computerized picture of what is going on in the heart area. It's "quick and dirty" but it usually provides a sufficient amount of information for the cardiologist to tell what's going on in there.
His new doctor, a distinguished heart surgeon named Stuart Russell, was not entirely satisfied with his last "echo", however, so he set Uncle Jack up for an MRI which would give him a much clearer picture of his heart and surrounding tissue. He reported to the MRI facility in the old Johns Hopkins Hospital building at 5 p.m. last evening and at the ripe old age of 79 underwent his first bout of Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
It was a trip. By the time it was over he felt like he had just appeared in an episode of "Star Wars", surrounded as he was by some of the most exotic machinery he has ever interacted with. The MRI machine is essentially a big round magnet into which he was rolled on a flat platform after being strapped in and hooked up to a dozen wires. Inside the magnet his face was perhaps two inches from the top surface which at first produced strong feelings of claustrophobia which he dealt with by shutting his eyes and keeping them shut for most of the half-hour it took to complete the procedure.
"Take a breath and hold it--------now breathe." This mantra, repeated dozens of times by the technician, became exceedingly boring after the first five minutes but the machine itself provided some entertainment by emitting a variety of honks, squeaks, buzzes, hums and clicks as it did its expensive thing. As one would expect from the best hospital in the U.S. the entire procedure from scheduling to completion was carried out with a high level of professionalism. The scan was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and that is precisely the time he was rolled into the monster machine. Lucky for Uncle Jack this splendid hospital is only ten minutes by Mini from his condo which will come in handy when he gets the bill and suffers his first heart attack.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Farewell to Jewel Boxes
Every once in a while Uncle Jack does something so brilliant that he feels compelled to share it with his readers. This time he trained his razor-sharp mind, honed to a fine point by his four long years in Ashland, Wisconsin High School whence he graduated in 1948, to the knotty problem of what to do with his collection of 300+ classical and jazz CDs now that he has moved from a fairly large house into a much smaller condo. Nearly all of his CDs were housed in those infamous plastic containers known as "jewel boxes" which he has long despised for their tendency to fall apart in his hands every time he tries to open one..
He packed them into three large boxes for the trip from Nags Head to Baltimore where they have been taking up entirely too much space on the floor in his livingroom/diningroom/office. A couple of weeks ago, prompted by the acquisition of a new CD player, he decided it was time to get them off the floor and into some kind of organized storage where he could quickly find the CD he wanted to listen to. But how and where?
At this point he did the "something brilliant" mentioned above---he Googled "CD storage". The 49,700,000 responses suggested that lots of people out there in cyberspace have been thinking about CD storage for a long time and it became quickly obvious that many music lovers shared his disgust with the clunky "jewel boxes" and had devised numerous ways to get rid of them.
By far the most popular solution was a derivative of the old-fashioned photo album, adapted to hold CDs in pockets instead of photos. They come in all sizes and shapes and degrees of elegance so a bit of hands-on investigation was required. One trip to Uncle Jack's neighborhood Target was all it took. He found a well-made (in China of course), compact album for a mere $19.50 that would accommodate 150 of his disks with room in the pockets for all the printed material from the jewel boxes. He bought two of them and in a frenzy of activity the next morning transferred his entire CD collection into two handy pouches where they are at his fingertips at all times and take up less than a tenth of the space required by the wretched jewel boxes.
After two weeks of experience with his new system he is pleased to report that no unforeseen problems have appeared and he can unreservedly recommend this splendid solution to the problem of economical, space-saving, convenient, efficient CD storage. He is so proud of himself he can hardly stand it.
He packed them into three large boxes for the trip from Nags Head to Baltimore where they have been taking up entirely too much space on the floor in his livingroom/diningroom/office. A couple of weeks ago, prompted by the acquisition of a new CD player, he decided it was time to get them off the floor and into some kind of organized storage where he could quickly find the CD he wanted to listen to. But how and where?
At this point he did the "something brilliant" mentioned above---he Googled "CD storage". The 49,700,000 responses suggested that lots of people out there in cyberspace have been thinking about CD storage for a long time and it became quickly obvious that many music lovers shared his disgust with the clunky "jewel boxes" and had devised numerous ways to get rid of them.
By far the most popular solution was a derivative of the old-fashioned photo album, adapted to hold CDs in pockets instead of photos. They come in all sizes and shapes and degrees of elegance so a bit of hands-on investigation was required. One trip to Uncle Jack's neighborhood Target was all it took. He found a well-made (in China of course), compact album for a mere $19.50 that would accommodate 150 of his disks with room in the pockets for all the printed material from the jewel boxes. He bought two of them and in a frenzy of activity the next morning transferred his entire CD collection into two handy pouches where they are at his fingertips at all times and take up less than a tenth of the space required by the wretched jewel boxes.
After two weeks of experience with his new system he is pleased to report that no unforeseen problems have appeared and he can unreservedly recommend this splendid solution to the problem of economical, space-saving, convenient, efficient CD storage. He is so proud of himself he can hardly stand it.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Follow me....
I have been trying to figure out how Twitter works without much success. However it appears that if you can find baltimoreoracle's Twitter page you can become a "follower" which seems to have all kinds of benefits like you will be notified when new tweets appear and you can easily exchange personal messages with me (not too personal, hopefully ) and probably a lot of other good things, too.
So far baltimoreoracle has 5 followers. You can be one, too, by clicking on this link: http://twitter.com/baltimoreoracle
In the meantime he will be mixing the Kool-Aid.
So far baltimoreoracle has 5 followers. You can be one, too, by clicking on this link: http://twitter.com/baltimoreoracle
In the meantime he will be mixing the Kool-Aid.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Maybe this will work.
Having trouble finding baltimoreoracle (formerly Uncle Jack) on Twitter? Try clicking on this and see where it gets you. http://twitter.com/baltimoreoracle
The birdies go tweet, tweet, tweet....
Shame on Uncle Jack for not at least letting his few remaining readers know that he is alive and on the planet once in a while. If truth be told he is in somewhat of a quandary regarding his blog. Since moving to Baltimore he seems to have much less time on his hands due to the many distractions of city life, accompanied by a shrinking inclination to sit down at his computer and blog when there are so many other interesting things to do---like watching the Ravens on his new 52 inch you-know-what. Perhaps, after 25 years of column-writing and 5 years of more-or-less dutiful blogging he has grown weary of this self-imposed task.
In any case he hates to just shut off the spigot and completely lose touch with those faithful readers who have professed interest in what he has to say no matter where he says it from and no matter how seldom. For this reason he is proposing to switch from blog to Twitter for a while to see how that goes. He doesn't have a clue as to how Twitter works at this point but he is going to give it a try. If you would like to participate in this adventure go to Twitter and search for baltimoreoracle (his Twitter name) and see what happens. This could be the beginning of something wonderful. Or not.
In any case he hates to just shut off the spigot and completely lose touch with those faithful readers who have professed interest in what he has to say no matter where he says it from and no matter how seldom. For this reason he is proposing to switch from blog to Twitter for a while to see how that goes. He doesn't have a clue as to how Twitter works at this point but he is going to give it a try. If you would like to participate in this adventure go to Twitter and search for baltimoreoracle (his Twitter name) and see what happens. This could be the beginning of something wonderful. Or not.
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