Things I Know

Been missing for a while.  Devoted my time to managing construction of a new, over-sized, two-car garage.  It will wind up costing about half what I paid for my house and more than five times what my parents paid for theirs.

If you’re old enough, all prices are ridiculous!  I’m old enough.

Gil Hodges has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  It’s not about time.  It’s way past time.  I’m glad his widow, Joan, who is 95-years old, lived to see this happen.  Hodges, for those who don’t know, was the best right-handed first baseman of his era.  When the gold glove award was created in 1957, Hodges won the first three given out at his position.  For the period from 1949 to 1959 he hit the second-most home runs and drove in the second-most RBI’s.  The game has changed, so 370 isn’t as impressive as it once was, but at the time he retired, Hodges was 12th on the all-time home run list and 3rd among right-handed hitters.  Way past time!

Buck O’Neill was also elected to the Hall of Fame.  He was a fine Negro League player.  Since there are other people in the hall for promoting the game, O’Neill should be there if he had never played, just for his role in the Ken Burns documentary series on baseball.

Potassium is an important element in human nutrition.  Too much or too little can be very bad for you.  So, I think the potassium content of the things you eat should be included on the nutrition label processed foods are required to display.  Some foods include it, but not all by any means.  Portion size is important too.  I read that tea contains about 88 mg per cup, and so is considered low in potassium.  Fine, except I’ve been drinking about half a gallon a day.  I have to knock that off.  In fact, I just did.

My daughter thinks some things should be obvious.  She’s been having trouble booking a vaccination through the website of one of the big pharmacy chains.  I suggested she try the other one.  Easy-peasy.  No problem at all.  She wondered why she didn’t think of that.

Proud moment:  our daughter-in-law was notified last month that she has passed the California bar exam.  She will soon be admitted to the bar.  Her husband, our son, has been a lawyer for 12 years now.  The two of them have decided to move from California to Florida, so they’ll have to study for another bar exam.

Little-known fact:  Having made the famous movie, the Grinch died less than a year later due to that enlarged heart.

You can listen to radio stations all over the world through certain internet services.  I tried radio.org the other day and found it a little odd.  I was listening to Newstalk ZB from Christchurch NZ.  What was odd is radio.org inserts its own commercials, so you’re going along listening to New Zealand broadcasters and then a commercial comes on and the announcer sounds very much American.

Check around folks.  I know ink-jet cartridges are crazy expensive, so the other night at the office supply store, I remarked that $52.13 was a lot.  But when I got home, it hit me, and I took to the internet.  I couldn’t find one that cost even half that much!  I found one on Amazon for $19.49.  Adding sales tax brought it to $21.17.  I decided I could wait two days to print what I needed to print and ordered the Amazon one.  Next morning, I took the $52.13 one back.  I had no trouble returning it for a refund and the guy at the counter told me they do price match.  Not his fault, but maybe if they checked other sources before pricing their merchandise, they wouldn’t charge almost two-and-a-half times as much for their product and wouldn’t have to make as many price matches or refunds.

My wife and I have done DNA tests through ancestry.com this year.  I’m about 1/8 Scottish and she’s about 2% Scottish.  Neither of us have a problem with that, but neither of us has any idea which of our ancestors contributed the Scottish part either.

One of my wife’s cousins also had a DNA test.  Then, he changed his surname.  Turns out his father wasn’t who his mother always said it was.  Genes don’t lie, but sometimes moms do.  Both his bio dad and the man who raised him have passed away.