Right now I have CNBC on the tube and, if you’ve listened to it since the recent financial crisis began, you would take your money out of every investment you have and hide it in your mattress. The talking heads all seem to think that things are dismal and there’s nothing good in the markets to invest in. I know my retirement accounts went down 35% since the beginning of the year. But I don’t plan on using any of that money for five more years so, by then, I expect it will go back up. Maybe not to the levels they were before, but much better than they are now.

Real estate hasn’t fared any better and most of you know we own more real estate than most. But you can’t spend real estate anyway so, for us, it’s not that big a deal. I did get the cottage back from the renters, but I planned to do that anyway. I miss the cottage as a cottage and, right now, I don’t really care if it sells or not. I know it’s way bigger than we need for a “cottage”, and it’s at the end of the earth as far as Jean is concerned, but it’s only 14 miles away and I really like it there.

Besides, it’ll give me something to do this winter (wallpapering and painting) and summer (reclaiming the lawn from the moles and landscaping). On the negative side, since December 31st, when I got it back, I’ve shoveled 3 inches, 1 inch, 6 inches and 9 inches of snow out of the driveway. Am I estimating the number of inches? No! I always have something with me that’s 6 inches long, so I can accurately measure whenever I want.

Back to the financial crisis or lack thereof. Things haven’t changed much for Jean and me and, today, I got a raise of $18,744 a year. I got my first social security check. I don’t really need it, and I’ll probably put it in a money market account, but it’s money I put in and I want some of it back. Yeah, yeah! You employees know that you put in 50% and your employer puts in 50%, so only half of it’s actually your money. But I was self employed for most of my work years and I had to put in both halves. It’s all mine and I want it back before we use it to bomb some other poor hapless country.

I started running again for the first time since mid-November. I only ran once in Europe and, with the plantar fasciitis problem, I didn’t run much from early October until I stopped altogether to let my foot heal. Starting up again is really tough. I can’t swim in pools, I haven’t ridden the bike trainer much, and I haven’t run at all, so the only cardio I got was the elliptical, and that’s not very intense. After my first run of 3 miles, my quads were so sore I could hardly walk up and down stairs. I ran again Sunday at Martin’s Trilander run, brunch, snowshoe, cross-country ski, and ice fishing festival. About eight ice fished, but they must be new Trilanders ‘cuz I didn’t recognize any of them. Martin had the chain saw all set to cut a hole in the ice for the first annual Trilander Polar dip, but no one signed up.

My run consisted of a two mile struggle, a 100 meter walk, another mile struggle, and another 100 meter walk. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I ran outdoors yesterday. They talked a lot about the cold temperatures and colder wind chills, but the weather wasn’t all that bad. The run was! I felt nauseous before I went out and felt worse all through the run. I ran a mile before I had the choice of 1) continue running or 2) puke. I chose to walk. After a while, I started to run until I was right at the edge of barf, then walked again. Since some of you may be eating, I won’t go into my bathroom misadventures throughout the day. Suffice it to say, my digestive system must be empty…battered but empty.

I’ll ride the bike trainer again today and will keep the three runs (not the bathroom kind) and the three bike trainer rides in my weekly training schedule. I’ll add weights two days a week and an elliptical here and there until we can get outside in the spring. I did find an endless pool on E-Bay for $6,000 dollars but decided against it. I’m not sure I’d use it enough to make it worthwhile. It’s not a group swim type of pool and nobody would want to stand around and watch another person swim 30 minutes before it was their turn. I’ll save the money for something else. Besides, I’m not very competitive in my age group anyway and the “good geezers” aren’t dying off fast enough, so no need to lower my swim time by two minutes in a 6 hour race. I may be done racing anyway. I was first in my age group in my last race (I was the only one in my age group) so there’s nowhere to go but down. Quit while you’re ahead!

Just (Watching It Snow Again And Again And Again) Jack

I’m out of the landlord business and I’m happy to have the cottage back. I’ve made four trips back and forth since Sean turned over the keys…well, all but the garage entry door key. Has anyone seen it? Now it’s a matter of taking things back that we moved to the condo in town. Slight problem! About the time we rented out the cottage, Jean rented out the Green Street house, so she moved things here as well. Most of the things at the cottage were nearly new since I had bought them when I got the cottage in the first place and we sorted out things from both places we wanted to keep and things we wanted to give to Goodwill.

Now I see that some of those things have worked their way in everyday use, so I think it will be hard to pry them away from Jean. I told her I was taking the portable CD player out to the lake because that’s why I got it in the first place. She had adopted it as her own, and carried it everywhere from next to her bike trainer playing the oldies to the kitchen playing Christmas music ever since Halloween. I waited until she was at work on Friday and spirited it away. She didn’t say anything but has been walking around with a black armband.

Back in September, I told Sean and Alana (the renters) that I wanted the cottage back by March 20th. That would give them plenty of time to find a place, but they would be welcome to stay all winter. Sean called me about three weeks ago and told me they had found a place and would be moving around Christmas. They had given me a $500.00 deposit back in September 2007 and had always paid their rent. The rent went from the 21st of one month to the 20th of the next. He thought they would be completely out by the 26th or 27th so what should they do about the December to January rent? I told him to just not pay it and we would prorate whatever time they were in there past December 20th and deduct it from the deposit.

They were supposed to close on the Kalamazoo house on the 19th, get possession that same day and be out within a day or so. As it turned out, they didn’t close until the 23rd, the weather turned bad and they weren’t completely out until the evening of the 30th. We met on the 1st of January for the official “turning over the keys” and to settle up the deposit/rent situation. In the meantime, I had gotten a billing for the 4th quarter sewer of $103.50, and they always paid for that in addition to the rent. So 10 days divided by 31 days in a month times $975.00 equals their allocation of rent of $314.51. And 91 days (from October 1 through December 30) divided by 92 days in the quarter times $103.50 equals their allocation of sewer of $102.37. That brings their share to $416.88 which, subtracted from $500.00, is $83.12 and that is the amount of their refund.

So I gave them an accounting on a sheet of paper and wrote them a check for $500.00. WHAT WAS I THINKING? Sean stood there in disbelief and couldn’t think of a thing to say. I said, “Before you pass out, here’s the thing…I could have rented the place to someone who didn’t pay their rent, sat there and trashed the place, and they didn’t. Next, he and Alana were all packed and set to move out before the next month’s rent started and, through no fault of their own, they couldn’t. They fixed all the minor things that went wrong with their own money, and only contacted me when something major happened…like when the siding blew off the house.” As to their share of the sewer, I didn’t tell them the bill was coming, and I knew they probably had spent most all of their savings just to get the new house and move in. I didn’t have the heart to spring that on them.

Without admitting any past transgressions, let’s just say I have a few minuses that still need to be offset by some pluses.

I’ll have plenty to do this winter painting, wallpapering and generally getting the cottage to be mine again. Matt is here for a few days, so I’ll prey on him to help carry out the TV and TV stand and the microwave. I may take out one of the basement chairs to sit in and probably won’t take much else until renovations are made. The renters left it surprisingly in good shape. Not as clean as I would have left it, but I may be a little on the picky side. I have since mopped the living room/dining area twice to get the tracked in salt to not streak the floor. Where is Judy when you need her to take pictures proving that men actually do know how to mop? Sorry guys. I gave away one of the “man-secrets”.

For those of you who don’t live in Michigan, we had a minor ice storm here this morning. The streets and sidewalks were ice-covered and very slippery. There were several reports of cars sliding into ditches. In eastern Barry County, near where Brian and Brenda Green live, there were reports of three mental patients running down the road, wearing stolen Trilander jackets, trying to escape. No one knew which hospital they had escaped from, but law enforcement issued a statement saying, “They must be crazy…no one in their right mind would go out running on a day like this”. Hopefully they have been taken back and are receiving the mental health treatment they deserve.

Just (Didn’t Run Today, Maybe Tomorrow) Jack

“Tis the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring…” ‘cuz I’m all alone. No, don’t feel sorry for me…that’s a good thing. I went to the hardware store, bought myself some wood glue, and fixed my computer chair. Well, really it’s a dining chair from the set that was out at the cottage. We brought it in when we rented the cottage out and I’ll take it back out since the renters are moving.

I had told the renters I wanted the cottage back by March 20th. I don’t have much to do without having the cottage to putter around at, and it doesn’t look like a sale is going to happen anytime soon. So, I’ll take it back, reclaim the yard from the moles…or at least get it back to a 50-50 stand-off, and use it as a cottage until the real estate market gets better.

With the rent money from the last 15 months, I may look at some upgrades too. I plan to replace the carpet in the downstairs hallway, the stairs, the upstairs hallway and the master bedroom. I may consider air conditioning, although there are lots of ceiling fans and you only need it for two or three weeks of the year. I’m also thinking about lawn sprinklers…the lawn always seems to die out in late July and August. I may consider some type of path or stairway to get from the main level down to the lake without having to walk on the lawn or through the walk-out basement. That list should keep me busy.

I have all my Christmas shopping done and have had for a few days. Granted, much of it is gift certificates and cash, but those take work too. I went to Kalamazoo last week to get a couple of things for the kids, and it cost me $18.82 at Bell’s for some liquid refreshments (take home) and $38.74 for four Belgian import beers at Tiffany’s. Maybe I should have stuck with internet shopping.

I may have brewed my first “pour-out” batch to date. In September I made a Dopplebock. It’s a higher gravity, higher alcohol lager beer that requires cold conditioning. I made it according to the recipe, except that I substituted dextrin malt for malto dextrin (that shouldn’t make much difference) and I couldn’t find Tettnanger hops so I used Spalt hops, a recommended substitute. I hit my expected original gravity within one point (actual 1.082 vs. expected 1.081), and my final gravity within two points (actual 1.020 vs. recipe 1.021 to 1.022). I fermented it at recommended lager temperatures, transferred it to secondary as directed for a few more days, brought the temperature up for a diacetyl rest for a couple of days, and lowered the temperature to 35° for a seven week lagering.

When I bottled it, all I could taste was alcohol and I wrote in my notes “YUCK”. It’s been carbonating for three weeks, which is too short for a lager, but I had to taste it anyway. It is lightly carbonated and, again, all I can taste is alcohol. I’ll have Matt try it when he comes to Michigan in January. Maybe it will improve by then or maybe it’s exactly like it’s supposed to taste and I don’t like dopplebocks like I thought I did. The book says it peaks at around five months, so I’ll probably give it that long to bottle condition. If  it’s not any better, I’ll either pour it out or give it to anyone who has lost their taste buds but wants a quick buzz (8.24% alcohol by volume).

This looks like it will be a scattered Christmas. Robert is here now and will be until Sunday, Sara will come over tonight but is volunteering at the Battle Creek Mission all Christmas day. Rocky and Nina will be here the day after Christmas, and we’ll have our Christmas dinner on Saturday with Sara, Robert, Rocky, Nina and Jean’s brother and sister-in-law. Matt and Anna will be spending Christmas in San Francisco and Mom, Bob, Patti, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Fred will be spending Christmas in Florida. Nice weather in Florida and California vs. crappy weather in Michigan…what would you pick??

As usual, I have overdosed on chocolate, peanuts and other sweets and my body is rebelling. Without getting into the gory details, I’ll just say I’m laying off the sweets for a couple of days (really, I am) and will try to get rid of some of this “winter weight” after the holidays along with everyone else. As I’ve said before, if I was an alcoholic, Jean would have shot glasses of whiskey all over the house. She’s not helping my weight problem and I, obviously, have no self control.

Just (Wishing For Stretch Pants) Jack

I just got back from a quick trip to Florida, as many of you already know. I’m guessing you expect me to blast the airlines for something/everything, but I’m not going to do that. When I fly, especially when I fly alone, I have plenty of time to think (DANGER!!DANGER!!). When I thought of the prices for flights, rather than thinking they were expensive, I thought they were cheap. Here’s the scenario. It’s like going up to a person and saying “I’ll give you $197 to take me to Florida and bring me back. I’ll drive to your place, we can go whenever you want, and I’ll have someone pick me up at your place when we get there. I need to come back on Monday, but I’d be happy to drive to your place and leave, again, whenever you want. And, by the way, I hope you can carry my bag for me ‘cuz I don’t want the bother”. What do you think that person would say?

I made the arrangements at the last minute, so I looked around for the least expensive flights. I got a flight out of Flint Bishop Airport for $100 less than Grand Rapids, Lansing or Kalamazoo. The drive is an hour and 45 minutes, door to door and the airport is on this side of Flint, so you don’t have to fight traffic at all. The overnight parking is $5 a day which is cheaper than Grand Rapids (I don’t know about Lansing or Kalamazoo). The airport buildings are quite new, fairly small, and easy to get through.

The only problem I had on the way down was passenger related. I went through security with only two or three other people in line. As is fairly common, I stepped in line behind a woman with three bags of stuff (you’re only supposed to have one plus your purse). She put them all down and rifled through one to find her picture ID. Out came three or four candy bars (Ghirardelli) and a couple of small bags of candy. Most people would have told me to go on by while they repacked their mess, but not her.

We got to the next station and she took three tubs to put all her junk in. One of the TSA people asked her if one of the bags was a C-Pap machine and she said yes. The attendant told her the motor had to be out of the bag, so she unzipped the top and pulled the motor out along with five or six more candy bars. It took her a while to stuff them all back in the bag and we were on our way. At the other end it took her a while to gather all that crap together while I, again, stood and waited for my things. We went on through and, since ours was the only flight taking off, she was in the same waiting area. When she got there, she took off her coat and sweater. She was around 50 years old, and was wearing a pair of black stretch pants. You can probably guess that, with that many candy bars in her bags, she should not have been wearing stretch pants…that’s all I’ll say about that.

The weather was great in Florida and Mom, Bob and I had a good time doing family things. I’ve been having a plantar fasciitis problem with my left foot lately. It may surprise you to know that I didn’t take any of my running clothes down there so I could give the foot a rest. It also may not surprise you that I went for a couple of long walks which is just as bad for a plantar problem as running. I’ll plan to run tomorrow in the Thanksgiving Day Trilander outing, but that will probably be it until the end of the year. We’ll see.

So, back to the travel.  My flights back up were fairly uneventful. The woman next to me from Tampa to Atlanta fell asleep and dropped her magazine four times on the floor. Her son picked it up each time and confiscated it the last time so she wouldn’t drop it again. I’d say it slipped off her lap, but with her build, she didn’t have a lap.

The girl next to me on the flight from Atlanta to Flint looked 15, but was probably 25 and was flying up to see her boyfriend. She had never been to Michigan and hadn’t been in snow. She was wearing a light, tight sleeveless top and a light sweater which she took off during the flight. She was a little nervous so she talked quite a bit. She was very short, less than five feet tall but, and I’m trying to be delicate here, was very, very well endowed. When I looked at her to talk, I really tried to keep my eyes focused on her face, but it wasn’t to be.

At the Flint airport, I went to baggage claim and waited there for my checked bag. After about half the bags had come through, I saw it coming and was relieved. Just then a  guy picked it off the belt and started walking out with his family. He was a guy about my age and was with his wife (I assume) and a young couple in their early thirties. I started to follow after them, trying to see if it was mine. I had just about caught up with them to ask if he was sure it was his bag when another that looked just like it came out from the back onto the belt. I turned around thinking that the guy had picked up his own bag since mine had my name on the airline tag and he looked like he could read. Not so!! The other bag wasn’t mine and it was the only bag not claimed.

I was kicking myself for not chasing the guy down but, by then, he was long gone. Come to find out, it was the young couple’s bag, and the airline baggage tag was covering my name tag, so they never saw it. When they got to Midland they realized it wasn’t theirs and, eventually took it back to the airport. The bag was delivered to me yesterday safe and sound. I have learned to not put anything in a checked bag that you couldn’t stand to lose.

So the only problems I had with the flights were passenger related, not the airlines.

Just (Happy To Be Home In The Crappy Weather) Jack 

At a recent hospital board meeting, the term omnibus came up, and the presenter asked if we all knew what it meant. Of course, it means everything for everyone and, in that case, it referred to the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act that we all knew as COBRA, but now we know as EMTALA. Our federal budgets seem to be providing “everything for everyone” without figuring out how to pay for it, but I digress. The title of the e-mail means that I have something to say about many things, so there’s an outside chance you may have interest in one of the things I say.

I didn’t, at that meeting, offer to reminisce about a TV show called Omnibus that was hosted by Alastair Cooke that was televised when I was a kid. It ran from 1952 to 1961. For those of you who do know about the show, I should say that I watched it all the time. But, in reality, it was a very, very boring show for a smarter, more sophisticated audience than I was at age six.

In my last epistle, I talked about problems I had in Europe, but I really didn’t give them credit for some of the things they do right (in my opinion of course). First of all, no one was wearing hats. I really shouldn’t say no one because, every once in a while, you would see an old codger (61 or so years old) wearing a “chapeau” style hat…one of those hats that French artists wear. But you never, and I mean never, saw anyone wearing a baseball cap. In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with wearing a hat, and with the tiny amount of hair I have, a hat is necessary. More importantly, you didn’t see anyone wearing a baseball cap backwards. I guess if they were an idiot, they didn’t want to give it away by looking like one. Going along with that, you rarely saw anyone wearing their blue jeans around the lower part of their rear end with 2/3 of their underpants showing. Probably they didn’t for the same reason stated above.

Europe operates on a 24 hour clock. When you looked at the digital clock to see what time it was, it may say 17:30. I know, I know. It takes a minute to figure out what time 17:30 is, but you subtract 12:00 and it’s 5:30 PM. When you say you’ll meet someone at seven, they don’t have to ask “Do you mean 7 AM or 7 PM”? Anyone who was in the military knows what a 24 hour clock is and it eliminates a lot of confusion. It took a little getting used to since the train schedules were in 24 hour format. We’re so dominated by the decimal system, it was hard to subtract 12 to convert the time. I was always thinking that 17:00 was 7 PM, but it was actually 5 PM. Luckily Matt hasn’t fallen off his bike “yet” so he can think faster than I can and we didn’t miss any rides.

I’ve seen the same clips of the same election speeches many times and I’m growing as weary of them as the campaign commercials that have finally stopped. When we go around the Thanksgiving Dinner table telling each other what we’re thankful for, no more campaign commercials for at least a year should come up in every household. But, again, I digress. I know it’s been said many times by many of the talking heads on TV, but I don’t remember this kind of excitement and enthusiasm for a Presidential election since Kennedy and Nixon in 1960. This is the first election in decades that I haven’t gone into the voting booth trying to decide on the lesser of two evils. No matter who you voted for, we had two very good candidates with two very different ideas on how to get us to the same place.

I guess I’m a slow learner, or I have a short memory span (shame on you for saying BOTH, BOTH). I know it’s only been since this past spring that I raked leaves at the lake, carried them to Hastings in the back of the Jeep, and dumped them at the city garage. Then, for several days afterward, I whined about all the spiders in my car. Well, I’m at it again and, apparently, I didn’t get all the spiders last time. I’ll be driving down the road and they will start coming out from everywhere. I had one walking all over the inside of the windshield today and I didn’t try to kill him (or her). They eat flies and that’s a good thing. But I gave them a free ride to town, and now they should GET OFF THE BUS!!

Just (Not Ready For Winter Yet So Take Your Time) Jack

As I said before, I hadn’t been out of the United States, Canada or Tijuana, so this recent trip was my first overseas adventure, and I encountered some issues I hadn’t expected. We think our way is the best way, but some of their customs make sense and, then again, some don’t.

Bathrooms – I could go on and on about my struggle with European bathrooms, but I’ll try to keep it short and as close to G-rated as I can. First of all, in about half the bathrooms, you have to pay. Sometimes 40 cents Euro…54 cents U.S. and sometimes more. Sometimes one fee for a urinal and a different one for “other”. But when you do have to pay, it is often to a bathroom attendant. What a crappy (pun intended) job. It is usually a woman, often an older woman (yes…older than sixty one). There is a dish to put the money in and, if you don’t have the correct amount, you feel weird getting change. Often times the door doesn’t exist if you are using a urinal. In several of the places, you could see women and men walking by a few feet away as you did your business. That’s just wrong!! In Chez Moeder, a lambic pub in the Southern part of Brussels, there was a stool with a door on the left, a stool with a door on the right, and in between a urinal with no door at all. Standing there, if someone opened the door to the bathroom area, you could see all the way to the street. And what if you, all of a sudden, have severe abdominal distress (don’t say you never have) and didn’t bring any change with you? And if you did bring change, do you want the door open with an older woman standing six or seven feet away while your “evacuation plan” is executed? There are a few times in your life you want complete privacy and, for me, that’s at the top of the list. For the safety of others, you hope you can leave the door closed for a few minutes after you’re done and the fan does it’s work. But, on the plus side, the bathroom attendant keeps the bathrooms cleaner than they are in the U.S.

Language – This is very obvious and it says a lot about how we, as Americans, think of our place in the world. Most Europeans speak at least a little English, so it’s easier for us to get around in their countries. We go to their countries and don’t make the effort to learn even the slightest amount of their language (me included…a minus sign in my book of good things and bad things done in my life). They make it easy for us to think that the world revolves around us, and it’s getting obvious that a few years down the road, it won’t. When we needed cash, or when we were buying tram tickets from machines, they all had a language feature that you could switch from Dutch, or French, or German, to English. The language barrier was a little more of a problem when eating. Most of the places didn’t have an English menu, so most of the time I had no idea what I was ordering. In one German restaurant in, you guessed it…Germany, I couldn’t figure out what all the choices were. When the waiter came back to take our order, I said “I can’t read the menu, but I would like a brat and some sauerkraut”. He pointed to a line on the menu and said this is what you want, so I ordered it. I was expecting a six inch Johnsonville Brat with a side of sauerkraut. What I got was a bratwurst that hung over both edges of a very large plate, a large helping of sauerkraut cooked to mush, and about a pound of mashed potatoes. After the meal, I looked like the guy in the old Alka Seltzer commercial who was sitting there in distress with his pants unbuttoned saying “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”. This past Saturday, Matt and I took a train from Brussels to Liedekerke, about half an hour away. The downtown area is about a mile from the train station, so it took us quite a while to walk through the streets. On the way, we saw several bakeries with some awesome pastries, but we didn’t stop. We were on a mission to visit De Heeren Van Liedekerke, a pub/restaurant with a great selection of beers. When we got there , there were no cars in the parking lot, no lights on in the building, and a sign in the window. It may have helped if we had understood the line on their website that said “De Heeren zijn op verlof van 6 tot 29 oktober !” We settled for a visit to the Retro Cafe where we drowned our sorrows in Duvel, Boon Kriek and spaghetti. Again, on the way back to the train station, I kept saying, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”.

Waiters/waitresses – In the United States, no matter where you go, waiters and waitresses come to your table over and over, asking you if everything is alright, or offering you another drink or dessert. No so much in Europe. We would get seated and may have to wait a while before anyone came to our table. We would order a drink or a meal, and wouldn’t see the waiter again until the meal or drink came. During the meal or drink, the waiter would not stop by at all. When the meal was done, or the drink was finished, the waiter did not come over to ask if you wanted another drink or to take your plate away. You would have to catch their eye, sometimes not very easily, and they would come over with a look of surprise, wondering what you want. In Chez Moeder, there was one girl tending bar and waiting tables. It was a neighborhood pub that served drinks and a selection of fine cheeses with bread. She was so busy, it took an hour for us to get our second drink (Hanssens Oude Kriek) and another hour to get our third (De Strusse Black Albert-13% ABV). Maybe that’s a good thing! In Europe, waiters and waitresses are not paid a sub-standard minimum wage like they are in the United States, so tipping is not necessary. Maybe that’s why they don’t over-do the service part.

Greetings – I’m not sure if this is a plus or a minus. Most people, in the parts of the countries we visited, would greet each other with a touching of cheek to cheek (not that cheek…get your mind out of the gutter) on both sides with an “air kiss”. That was fine for women to women or women to men. But to see a couple of guys that looked like they were longshoremen or football players touching cheeks and blowing air kisses just doesn’t seem right. Again, at Chez Moeder, they went a little overboard. There was a table of young guys having a few drinks, playing some kind of dice game, maybe for drinks, and having a great time. When Matt and I got to the place, there were four of them. Soon, more guys would come and a couple would go, but the group stayed at about eight for an hour or more. When a new guy came, they would kiss each other on the cheek with a loud juicy smack. Girls came and went with some of the guys, so I don’t think it was anything other than a greeting, but a little over the edge for my taste.

PDAs – I’m not really a prude as you can tell from some of the things I write, but extreme public displays of affection are a little disconcerting. Here in the United States, couples will be holding hands, sometimes with a squeeze or a pat in restricted areas, but I witnessed many PDAs in Europe that went to extremes. The couples were locked in an embrace that resemble those little metal puzzles that you can’t get apart without knowing “the secret”, usually with the girl on the guy’s lap, groping and fondling like they were teenagers parked at the drive in movies that have pretty much disappeared (resulting from a concerted effort of a splinter parent group called Fathers With Daughters). To keep this G-rated I won’t even go into the tongue action or the targets of the groping. I wanted to yell “Get a room”, but I didn’t know how to say it in the local language. If they keep it up (no pun intended), it will lead to a population explosion that we don’t want.

I’ve just touched the surface and, I’m sure, I will bore you soon with more complaints.

Just (Had A Blast But Glad To Be Home) Jack

I’ll be leaving for Belgium on Thursday, landing there on Friday afternoon, and knew I would need some money (Euros) for tips, busses, etc. when I got there. So I went down to my local bank to get some just in case they had to have extra time to get it themselves. They couldn’t get it, or at least, that’s what the tellers told me. It is a local, independent bank, and I know most of the people there. I was a little surprised, and then I panicked, not knowing exactly where to go.

I have a small Bank of America account that I use when I’m out of town to get cash from ATMs without paying any fees. So I came home, got on their web site and checked out their customer service. I found that I could order money!! Is that great or what?! I could order up to $5,000 worth from any country if I used my Bank of America  bank account or VISA card. I have both, so I ordered 200 euros. I could have it delivered to the closest branch (Grand Rapids or Kalamazoo) for $7.50, or I could have it delivered to my house, also for $7.50. I chose the house (duh!). I have to sign for it when it comes, so I’m tied down until then. The exchange rate isn’t very good, $1.45 per Euro, but it’s getting better every day. Apparently the jerks on Wall Street that screwed up our economy have affected Europe’s as well.

I did go to Kalamazoo last week to let Bank of America know that I would be in Europe, so don’t cut off my ATM or credit card availability when they see unusual charges. I didn’t tell them, but I’ve never been outside the United States other than trips to Canada (that’s like being in the US so it doesn’t count) and a day trip to Tijuana (that’s not really being in Mexico), so they’ve never seen foreign charges on my ATM or credit card.

Matt just sent me an e-mail telling me to be sure to have a suitcase with wheels since we’ll be walking a lot with our bags. The trip over shouldn’t be bad, but the bags may be loaded on the trip back. I’ll be bringing back refrigerator magnets for Margee, poker chips for Tommie Campbell, and rocks (not diamonds…actual rocks) for daughter Sara. Also, since I didn’t do any races in 2007 and only two in 2008, I’m running short of t-shirts that don’t have food stains on them. So I may (hold onto your seats) actually buy some clothes while I’m there. That won’t leave any room for beer, but I’m sure I’ll have a couple while I’m there.

I’ve checked out the weather over there and it looks like it will be much like it is here in the fall. Highs in the fifties and, sometimes, sixties and lows in the forties at night. The one downside is that there is likely to be widespread fog on Friday, both in Brussels where the trip ends, and Frankfurt Germany where I have a stop after an eight hour flight. The plane is supposed to land at around noon their time, so maybe the fog will burn off by then. If not, wherever we land won’t be in the US, so I’ll be in awe.

Matt is in Amsterdam this week after a long weekend in Munich for Oktoberfest. He and three friends left Munich yesterday for a few days there before meeting me in Brussels on Friday. I gave him the Dad advice…have a safe trip…don’t go anywhere with strangers…and don’t sample “the wares” in Amsterdam. He didn’t know what “the wares” were. He’s such an nice, naive boy, doesn’t know that prostitution is legal over there, and I didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag (no pun intended), so I told him it meant that I didn’t want him to break his teeth on hard candy. On the off-chance that he and his friends have gone there to check into the Amsterdam branch of the Betty Ford clinic for a couple of days after too much beer in Munich, I don’t want to know about it.

Just (Looking For My International Travel Clothes) Jack

Many of you who actually read this drivel I send out have read about my wars with our animal and bird friends in the past. You also know that I haven’t been very successful in my personal wars, especially with moles. At the cottage, without me being there, they have taken right over. I’ll be getting the cottage back from the renters by spring, so the feud with the moles will continue and I’ll probably still not win, but maybe keep them somewhat in check.

So my latest battle has been with skunks. I’ll be 62 in December, and in all those years, I’ve never had issues with skunks. Never been sprayed…never had them cause problems…until now! Sure, they stink, but we may stink to them, so maybe it’s even. Anyway, yesterday I was walking around the front yard and noticed that the turf is peeled right back all over and it looks like someone buzzed through with a rototiller. The neighbor had mentioned something about skunks the evening before, and I really hadn’t paid much attention to it, but it made sense that skunks were having a party in the front yard of the condo.

So last night, around 8:30 or so, I looked out into the front yard. Jean had left the front light on and there was a skunk having a blast in the turf. I walked out on the porch and he didn’t even look up. I walked to the edge of the driveway, and he looked right at me as if to say, “Thanks for leaving the light on so we can see these tasty morsels”. Boldly, or foolishly, take your pick, I took a couple of steps toward him. He looked up again and took about two steps, stopping at a better place to eat, and started digging. I clapped my hands several times and he finally took off for the back yard.

The back yard doesn’t have the topsoil that the front yard has, so it takes a jack-hammer to penetrate the clay. Hence, no grubs…hence, no skunks. I went back inside for a few minutes and was mesmerized by the President’s solution to all big business’ financial problems at your and my expense, but I digress. I went back out a few minutes later and our buddy was back. Again I went out to the driveway and, this time, he didn’t even look up. I threw a small stone at him, got him in the tail, and he raised it as if it were at attention. I clapped and he ran away again, probably to come back in a few minutes. So I went down to the basement, where the guns are stashed, and got one of the kids’ confiscated BB guns. Either the one used to shoot the neighbor’s cat or dog…I can’t remember… or the one that was used to shoot the windows out of the garden house. You kids know what I’m talking about.

At that instant, I rethought my strategy and could see a couple of flaws. First of all, I hadn’t gotten on the internet to see how far a skunk could spray. With my luck, as I stood 20 feet away, I would find out the hard way that they spray 21 feet (I still haven’t looked so don’t hold me to that number). Second, even if the spray wouldn’t go that far, it would make the entire neighborhood reek for days and I may be drummed out of the homeowners’ association (maybe that’s a good thing). Third, if by some stroke of luck, good or bad, I hit the skunk in the head and killed it, I would have a dead skunk in the yard and now what?? I checked a couple of more times but the skunk hadn’t returned.

This morning, I started looking at the internet, where we all know you can find out real solutions to all your problems. I went down the Google page, and most of them said something like, “The skunks are after the grubs, so if you kill the grubs, they won’t be back”. That’s fine, but it takes quite a while to kill grubs and, in the meantime, our lawn would turn into a plowed field. I was looking for some quicker action. One of the web sites said that skunks are repelled by the urine of their predators. I read farther into the blog and a woman said that her husband just went out and peed in the yard, “marking his territory”, and it kept the skunks away. In Michigan now, if you are caught urinating in public, that’s a fourth degree criminal sexual conduct charge, and you would end up on the public web page as a convicted pervert.   I can see the Banner headlines now. PENNOCK HOSPITAL BOARD MEMBER ARRESTED IN SEXUAL DEVIANT STING. The story would read: Jack Walker was quoted as saying, “I was just peeing in my yard, in front of everyone, to keep the skunks away”. If nothing else has derailed the building of a new hospital on the Ferris property, that might tip the scales.

So I went to the garden store today and bought some fox urine. All the way home I was thinking of the guy that had to run around chasing foxes, holding a cup for them at just the right time. That’s a good candidate for one of those DIRTY JOBS for Mike Rowe that I watch on the Discovery Channel all the time. Around that same time, Jean figured that I wouldn’t have enough time to get anything with my meetings and all, so she got a canister of “Pest Away” granules. I put drops of the fox urine on cotton balls pegged into the ground with roofing nails at regular intervals. I also sprinkled the granules around the perimeter of the yard, so we’ll see how that works. I thought when you moved into a condo, you had “people” to do all that stuff for you. Now, $30.00 or so later, I’m beginning to wonder.

Just (If You Can’t Smell Me Coming I Was Successful) Jack  

P.S. I already thought of peeing in a jar while inside, then sprinkling it around the yard from a watering can, but Jean won’t hold the jar.

My triathlon season has ended after having done only two races, and I’m not training for any running races, so I don’t have that inner desire to drag my lazy bones off the couch and go out and train. I’ve had some busy days lately and I leave for San Francisco tomorrow, so I’ve missed swimming this week Monday and today and I’ll also miss swimming Friday and next Monday while I’m gone. The water is getting colder and the mornings aren’t all that warm either, so lake swimming may be over for the year, at least for me.

I know I should start going to the fitness center to lift weights and do some cross training on the spinning bike or the elliptical machine, but I haven’t mustered up that motivation either. I know I’d miss tomorrow through Monday on my San Francisco trip and October 9th through the 19th on my Belgium/Germany trip, so I can think of a whole lot of reasons not to get started until my world travels end. I have been running, two days of five miles each at a slightly faster pace than normal, and eight miles on Sunday at a slow, endurance pace.

My run this past Sunday was not the best. First of all, I had a disastrous brewing day on Saturday. Without going into a whole lot of detail, my 6.5 gallon carboy wouldn’t fit in my small basement refrigerator to ferment (yes, I did try it before I filled it, but the weight of 5.5 gallons of wort made a difference). It was awkward to get in there in the first place, then to spend 15 minutes trying to get the door closed, then haul it back out and transfer it to a 6 gallon carboy, then put it back in, also awkwardly. Anyway, I strained my back muscles…nothing was pulled, but it was sore and the muscles were tight.

I thought they would loosen up as the Sunday run went on, but they got worse. I ran “around the block” from Broadway, to Willitts, to Hammond, to State Road and back to Judy’s where I started. It ended up being 7.78 miles, not the eight I expected, but I hurt too much to run any farther and round it off. For those of you who think I broke one of the “Jack Rules” by not continuing to 8 miles, you forget about Part 2, Subpart (a) that says if you do a loop run, you have the option of rounding it to the next mile or leaving it at exactly “loop distance” even though the promoter of the loop says it’s an even mile distance. It was raining most of the way; not hard, but enough to get everything wet, which leads to my second problem. Without getting too graphic, I’ll just say that I had some chafing in some delicate areas that got to the point of bleeding. Jean’s extended family came over for a get-together Sunday afternoon, and I must have looked like a toddler that had soiled his diapers and no one would change them for him.

I have thought that Jean has been losing it for a long time but I’m sure of it now. We went to a family wedding Friday night and hardly knew anyone. It was Jean’s brother’s wife’s brother or, maybe more confusing, my brother-in-law’s brother-in-law, but it wasn’t me…think about it. Anyway, I had swam that morning and my sinuses were acting up. I leaned over to Jean at the church and said that I could be the designated crier since I was sniffling all through the service and my eyes were watering. Anyway, I digress. We went down, after the wedding and the three hours of pictures (it seemed like three hours…maybe it was thirty minutes), to the County Seat for a reception dinner. It was a sit down affair so there was no walking around and mingling.

Jean sat next to me and also the groom’s mother who is 92 years old. Jean was helping her get some things to eat and trying to convince her that it wasn’t the waitress’s fault that she got a huge piece of prime rib because she was the groom’s mother, even though that isn’t what she ordered. I looked over and Jean was talking to Mrs. Hale and was putting coffee creamer in her own rice. I asked her what she was doing and she said she thought the creamer was butter. Now I ask you…have any of you ever mistaken the creamer for butter? The question is rhetorical…no need to respond.

I drove a friend to Grand Rapids this morning for radiation treatments and memories (what I can remember) of the bike wreck came streaming back. The more I thought about it, it was really all of your memories that you have told me about ‘cuz I don’t remember much. When my friend went for lab work, she was complaining about all the times she has had to fork over what little blood she seems to have left. I remember, to some extent, being poked and prodded by everyone who came along including the janitors. I feel guilty whining when I see what she’s having to go through.

Just (Thankful For The Friends And Family That Helped Me) Jack