The Best Things in Life Aren’t Necessarily the Latest iThings

I don’t have and don’t want the new Apple watch. No doubt it will be out of date faster than the latest fashion trends. And if you have an Apple watch that’s all any of your friends will want to talk about. I have plenty of other, more interesting topics for conversation. Such as my health—which I’m happy to tell you about shortly.

As all of you with smart phones know, not only is a smart phone a watch, telling the date and time, but it also rings an alarm when I’m running late, which too often is the case. To name just a few chores my cell routinely and exquisitely performs as my personal assistant:

 -Keeping my calendar, my contact list, my “to do” and grocery lists;

-Checking email, sending text messages, and calculating tips.

 -Connecting me to satellites with maps and directions that almost always get me where I want to go; and

-Supplying musical accompaniment when I’m bored.

 

In some ways this technology is perfect for older brains. When I can’t remember the name of an actor in a program I’m watching, or any other fact, I can quickly retrieve the elusive name or fact by typing in what I do remember. Voila--the name pops up as quickly as I wish it would in my head.  

But I promised to talk about my health so let’s take a short detour into that topic. I promise to tie it into the discussion of iThings. A couple of years ago my shoulder got “fixed” just before I got the iPhone 4S. Rotator cuff surgery was a big success, at least for my shoulder. Not so much for my neck, arms and hands, as I’ll explain.

When the tear to my rotator muscle was repaired and a bone spur removed, a pre-existing spinal problem was aggravated, making it difficult to use my hands. My iPhone 4S (which now is considered old, at least by iPhone standards) also was a big success for me, at least for awhile. Siri, who is able to hear and respond, came to the rescue.  And she takes dictation.

Unlike in the commercials by Martin Scorsese  (whose name I might add I just now retrieved from my brain without technological help, though it’s nice to know I have a smart phone to tell me his name if I can’t recall it) for Siri, she isn’t perfect. But then who is? Just keep that in mind if I send you a garbled message.

Nevertheless, I consider having a pocket device with these functions amazing. What else could I want?

Well, on occasion, I wish I could use my iPhone as, well, a phone. It seems the only thing my current iPhone doesn’t do is make or receive phone calls. The volume on calls is so low it’s hard for me to hear a caller. You could say my hearing is going. And maybe it is. But other people can’t hear me either.

I’ve had issues with the case as well as the phone. I originally bought an expensive shatterproof case for my new phone. That promptly caused my cell to overheat. So I replaced the case, and then--you guessed it. I dropped my phone a short distance. The visual display was kaput and could not be repaired.

As a thrifty consumer--you can call me a cheapskate--I opted to replace my broken cell with a refurbished iPhone 4S. Among other minor issues, such as the volume on calls, the case and the refurbished cell now are just slightly misaligned, so the case turns off the ringer.

Just as body parts are connected, so is my technology. Right now my seven-year-old Mac Air and original IPad are able to sync with my “old” iPhone 4S, though none of them can update with the latest software.

So what to do? Should I just throw out thriftiness and spring for a whole new set of iThings? Given my luck with replacements and repairs of any kind, I’m trying to live with the phone, its case and my repaired shoulder for a little while longer—who knows what amazing new abilities the next generation of I-Things or human joints will bring?

 

A Once in a Generation Achievement

Some things you only see once in a generation or once in a lifetime if you are lucky enough to see them at all. When a great achievement happens, as it did for American Pharoah, who took the Belmont virtually wire to wire, we should celebrate. In horse racing, it has been more than a generation—37 years to be precise--since we’d had a Triple Crown winner.

A few years ago, when it seemed we’d never see a Triple Crown Winner again, horse-racing pundits were saying we’d never see another Triple Crown Winner if we didn’t change the length of the race, the timing between races, or other requirements. But they were wrong.

Great Achievers come along in many fields, often separated by generations. We should not change our expectations when we go through a dry spell. But we should wholeheartedly cheer and appreciate just how lucky we are to see a Triple Crown Winner in any field in our lifetime.

- How many Babe Ruth’s and Lou Brock’s have there been in baseball?

- How many years passed between Beethoven and Mozart?

- How many generations produced a Rembrandt or Picasso?

- How many years separated Einstein and Edison?

You can add to the list. American Pharoah not only is a Triple Crown winner, but the second fastest Triple Crown winner at the Belmont since Secretariat. This year we saw a Great Horse, a Great Achiever.

Whenever we see a Great Achiever we should celebrate the achievement and also celebrate that we are alive to see it. We don’t know when, or even if, we will see this achievement again.

 

My Legs-Part 2 (Solutions)

A Flock of Birds On My Legs?

Recently I wrote a short essay about my legs, or more specifically, how humiliating it is to go to the beach with senior-citizen legs. They are lumpy and bumpy, certainly not the objects of beauty they once were, say fifty years ago. But now they are decorated with spider veins, bursitis swellings, bruises and other, ill-defined, non-decorative what-nots.

I’ve gotten a fair number of comments from folks, male and female, who say they can relate to my complaints. Some of my readers have been kind enough to even offer helpful suggestions such as wearing maxi-dresses, going to the beach at night, in the rain when no one else is there, wearing long pants. All worthy ideas.

Other thoughts have occurred to me, such as wearing leggings or tights. Those seem to be a fashion trend designed for my cosmetic issues. Though none of these ideas is the perfect solution in the heat of the summer. And then another idea occurred to me while I was at the gym getting ready for my thrice-weekly water torture, no--exercise, class. Note it also requires the wearing of a swimsuit. 

I have long been one of those old-fashioned people who had thought tattoos not particularly attractive unless sported by sailors or motorcycle gang members. But perhaps I should reconsider. While struggling into my swimsuit, I noticed a young woman in gym apparel with a lovely flock of birds on her back and shoulders.

Maybe artfully-applied tattoos could turn my imperfections into a lovely design of fish swimming on my shins? Or a flock of birds on my thighs. Something to think about while I tried to get my heart rate up in the pool and not otherwise injure myself.

Of course, I should add, and not as an afterthought but as a serious point, I realize how lucky I am my focus on spider veins and unsightly body parts is a vanity issue. Many of my contemporaries are dealing with serious issues; my complaints pale by comparison. Some have life-threatening conditions. Others are in the joint-replacement, bionic categories, using walkers or canes. And still other contemporaries are dead.

So what to do? Well, until I join that last category I’ll continue to try to find the humor in the situation many of us lucky enough to make it to the senior-citizen category find ourselves in.

I’ve even given thought to other body parts. If Nora Ephron could write a whole book, “I Feel Bad About My Neck”, regarding one relatively small body part, what could I do with my whole body?

For example, I have a wealth of funny material: the bursitis in my hip; the arthritis in my spine; not to mention the weird little pain in my left shin, which is the one small body part without any apparent disfigurement.

The good news about all these issues of ailing: I’ve found I no longer have to carry ID to get the senior citizen price at the movies. And the older I get the harder it is to remember what to bring along. But that’s another story.

Going on A Beach Vacation with Senior-Citizen Legs

When you go on a beach vacation you start to worry what you look like in a swimsuit or shorts.

Even when you're in the senior citizen crowd. Or maybe you get to the point you don't care at all. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad sign that I haven’t quite gotten to that point. I am at the stage where I realize there's only so much you can do with exercise and diet to improve those contours.

But you also start to notice the imperfections that have been covered with umpteen layers of corduroy and wool during a Midwest winter, such as small spider veins. Some of those spider veins are so clustered together my legs look as if spiders have been nibbling at them for most of the winter.

I hear there are doctors who in a short, in- office visit can make them disappear. I considered, but never got around to doing anything about the spider veins. And here it is after Memorial Day, the start of swimsuit and shorts season.

But I needn’t have worried. Within a day or two of our arrival at the beach, we went on a whale watch. In order to try to get a better view of the whales I knelt on one of the padded seat cushions. Later that day I noticed large lumps under both of my knees. A bit of online research and I concluded I now have what's colloquially known as “housemaid’s knees” or “preacher’s knees”. I guess it depends on your occupation or denomination.

Then, to add insult to injury, or maybe it was to add injury to insult, I slipped in the shower and smacked my shin against a hard surface. Whether the shin hits the hard surface or the hard surface hits the shin, it's the shin that takes the beating.

My shin is now multiple blue, green, and purple colors. The better to go with the spider veins.

Two conclusions can be drawn from my leg-related experiences:

1) If your legs are banged up enough, People will be looking at them, and not the rest of your swimsuit-clad body; and,

2) There should be a separate Wikipedia entry for “whale-watching knees”.

50 to 1: A Bet Worth Taking

Long odds, but what a pay out if the gods are looking down on you with favor.

 Few have seen this nearly-perfect, indie film, “50 to 1”. The film takes its name from Mine That Bird’s odds at the 2009 Kentucky Derby. Bird’s unlikely road to victory inspired the movie. The odds on the making of the movie, described by Producer, Director, and Co-Screenwriter, Jim Wilson, and Co-Producer and Co-Screenwriter, Faith Conroy, in the extras on the DVD, appear to have been pretty long as well.

Bird’s story was so amazing the film had no need to embellish this fairy-tale win. 

The movie opens with a punch: Chip Woolley (Skeet Ulrich), coming to the aid of a stranger, Mark Allen (Christian Kane), in a bar brawl. The two scraggly cowboys become friends but soon after loose touch. A decade later Mark and Chip meet up and Mark Allen hires a down-on-his-luck Woolley, as a trainer.

Allen learns of an opportunity to buy Mine That Bird, the 2008 Canadian Champion 2-year-old male horse, and sends Woolley to look him over. Woolley is not particularly impressed with the small, somewhat lopsided Bird, a Kentucky-born gelding who originally had been purchased at the Yearling Sales in 2007 for $9,500 by a Canada trainer. But when Woolley sees Bird run he changes his mind.

Mark Allen, on behalf of the New Mexico partnership he co-owns, buys Bird for $400,000. Allen’s partner Leonard “Doc” Blach (William Devane) is not impressed by either Woolley or Bird. Allen, loyal to his old friend Woolley and trusting of Woolley’s assessment, offers to buy Doc out if Doc ultimately is unhappy with Bird.

Doc looks to be the more horse-astute of the partners. Bird’s initial races in the U. S. are not impressive: second place in the Borderland Derby and fourth place in the Sunland Derby.  Woolley is struggling and in the midst of his other troubles crashes his motorcycle, shattering his leg.

Meanwhile, Woolley and Mark Allen, along with everyone involved, are astonished when Mine That Bird receives an invitation to the 2009 Kentucky Derby. Even though Bird’s career earnings in graded-stakes races had qualified him for the invitation no one believes Bird has a serious hope of winning.

The New Mexico owners and their families, and Woolley as trainer, decide to accept the invitation as the lark it is likely to be, and an experience of a lifetime. Unlike the million-dollar horses against which Bird will be competing, Bird is not flown to Kentucky. Instead, Woolley, his leg still in a cast, drives Bird from New Mexico to Louisville.

 The movie portrays Churchill Downs and Derby events as elegant, the bourbon plentiful, and the other owners derisive of Mine that Bird and the rustic cowboys who brought him. Pretty close to the mark as I recall news and events in Louisville that year.

The New Mexico cowboys, as they are known at the Derby run-up, have luck riding with them as they secure the Derby-winning Calvin Borel as their jockey. The film makers had similar luck securing the affable Borel to play himself in the movie.

The rest, as they say, is history. Even though you likely know the end result of the race, it’s still a thrill to see the small Mine that Bird, played by Sunday Rest, start out about eight lengths behind the pack and then make his move to an astonishing six lengths win.

The movie, like the horse and its owners and trainer, is a long-shot worth betting on. It’s available on DVD and Netflix. 

Before You Assume the Risk—Think—What If I Did This Instead?

Assumption of the risk is one of those legal concepts you don’t hear much about these days. But it could be a useful tool in analyzing some recent events and behaviors that led to disastrous results for the person assuming the risk and sometimes others.  News stories of late seem to ignore or gloss over the risky actions that set the disasters into motion. A few recent news stories illustrate this concept.

Last week, a jury found Eddie Ray Routh, the shooter of Chris Kyle (the former Navy SEAL of “American Sniper”—of the movie and book--fame) and Chad Littlefield, Kyle’s buddy, guilty of murder. Not surprising. Routh admitted the shooting. And proving a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity is a high standard under Texas law.

But have you ever wondered what might have happened if Kyle and Littlefield, when they realized Routh was delusional or “straight up nuts,” as Kyle described Routh in a text to Littlefield as they were driving to the shooting range where their shootings occurred, had decided to take Routh for a burger and bowling or even to play paint ball instead.

I also wonder about Kayla Mueller, the young aid worker who was taken hostage by ISIS terrorists after she had gone to help refugees in the Middle East and then crossed over to Syria with her Syrian boyfriend. What if she had decided to come home instead and teach in the inner city or help at an American orphanage? She still could have been killed or injured in trying to help those less fortunate. But at least her parents wouldn’t be on national television wondering aloud why the United States hadn’t sent a Special Forces team sooner to try to rescue her.

In a recent article in the Louisville Courier Journal, the front-page story told of a teenager who shot and killed his adoptive parents and sister. Then he loaded his Mom’s SUV with a backpack of firearms (four .38 caliber revolvers, a 9mm pistol and a double-barreled shotgun) and headed to Baltimore, only to die when he opened fire on police. The mayhem he had left in his adoptive home was discovered after the shootout with police.

The article made the point the adoptive parents were good, caring people, the mother a social worker who helped troubled children. The adopted son was not considered one of those troubled kids. By all accounts he had been a quiet, respectful, church-going youngster. He had had a little disagreement with his foster parents during whom they had taken away his computer and cell phone. But everyone who was interviewed for the story was astonished that he had done such a terrible thing.

I, as one reader, was astonished the article never mentioned where the youngster had gotten all the guns. But wait, I shouldn’t be. This is Kentucky. I guess most families have a small cache of guns so their teenagers can practice with real weapons whenever they feel like it.

In all of these cases, the concept of “assumption of the risk” comes to mind. Just because you take your kids or foster kids or the whole family to church does not inoculate them from having a moment of bloodthirsty thoughts. Or from becoming homicidal if they have that tendency. And even trained experts can’t predict which of those sweet kids might have a moment of insanity or a breaking point.

I was a good, responsible kid, a polite, church-going teenager. I never considered shooting anyone. My Dad had guns and he taught me to use them.

But I, too had at least a moment or two when I considered suicide. I’m happy to say those moments did not occur when my Dad’s guns were close at hand. But how many other young people have such thoughts? If they have an easy way to act on a fleeting notion the consequences can be deadly. Leaving those weapons where someone has access is assuming the risk they will act on a crazy notion and kill themselves or others.

Using assumption of the risk to analyze a victim’s behavior might appear to be a way to blame the victim. And I guess it is in a way. In no sense does it mitigate the criminal responsibility of wrongdoers. And it’s no excuse for terrorists. But it is a concept that we who want to avoid becoming victims should think about. And also, maybe we should consider the risks we are unnecessarily assuming on behalf of good Samaritans, law enforcement or military personnel when we as civilians head off to war zones, give weapons to people we identify as “nuts” or keep guns that are not under lock and key. When bad things happen in such circumstances we’ve assumed the risk for ourselves and others.

Background Note

Assumption of the risk is a concept that originates in civil law and was a subset or type of contributory negligence. It’s pretty self-explanatory. If you walk onto the railroad tracks, ignore the train whistle, and then are run over by the train you have assumed the risk of being hit by that train. At one time, assuming the risk under some state laws was a complete bar to collecting any damages in a civil suit. But juries, and even judges on occasion, tended to not want to let a guilty defendant off. In some cases a person assumed a risk but the other party’s negligence was so great that the jury would find for the plaintiff even thought the plaintiff also was guilty of some negligence. As in the case of a driver who knows his car brakes are almost shot but he drives anyway. He can’t stop in time when another driver runs a red light. A jury is going to want to let that first driver collect from the driver who ran the red light.

As a result of juries trying to come to some sense of rough justice even if contributory negligence didn’t allow for it, the courts or the legislatures created a new doctrine: comparative negligence. This new principle provided that relative negligence could be parceled out to each according to their percentage of risk.

Vacation from my stuff

In glancing through the Maui News this morning there was a meeting of “Clutterers Anonymous”. The meeting was held at St. Theresa’s Church. No doubt such meetings are a great idea. As clutterers deal with their issues they will be able to get rid of their clutter. Then they can have a tag sale so other people can pick up some real bargains. And then they too can join Clutterers Anonymous to get rid of their extra stuff at some future date. It has the potential to be a self-perpetuating cycle.

But I don’t need to join Clutters Anonymous. At least not right now since I’m on vacation. One of the best things about being on vacation is not just seeing something new—for me it’s as much about not seeing some things. That is, leaving my clutter behind. Yes, I confess, I have some clutter.

But while we’re on vacation I can pretend I do not have clutter. Staying in a one-bedroom condo we have everything we need. Where are my snow boots, my coats, my jackets and scarves? All back at home. Ok so we went on a trip to a warm climate. But also back home are the piles of incomplete projects, the stacks of things on my desk, the boxes of writing ideas, the piles of whatnots. The kitchen gadgets I seldom use. The clever stuff I bought and now don’t use and is just taking up valuable space at home. For now all of that stuff is out of sight. And for the most part out of mind. How liberating.

There’s at least one more reason I didn’t make it to the Clutters Anonymous meeting this morning. I didn’t get around to reading the newspaper until well after the time for the meeting. So I’ll think about all this clutter issue another day. Until they combine Clutterers and Procastinators Anonymous meetings I don’t really have a chance.