Daily Grit by Wes Thorp

I'd vote for Clare Danes of Homeland for president before I'd vote for Trump, Rubio or Cruz

 

She's a better actor than Trump, Rubio or Cruz

 

I watched a good chunk of last night's Republican debate in Houston and left with a queasy stomach, kind of like you do after eating four pieces of deep dish pizza with bacon and lots of cheese. I felt sick.  CNN even catalogued the insults.  It was too pathetic to make even Saturday Night Live.

It was like watching a township board or city council meeting run amok.  It was insult after insult between Rubio, Cruz and Trump.  In heaven, Ronald Reagan must be gagging with disdain for their performance.

Right now, I'm not sure who I would vote for on either side.  I'd vote for Clare Danes, the main character of the Showtime series about a CIA operative who struggles and is transparent.  She's bi-polar and is transparent about it.  She's smart, but she makes mistakes.  But she learns from them.  

These candidates, I know, are a reflection of the voters.  We need to be more demanding of right behavior and right thinking.  

I think we are in trouble.  Anybody disagree?

My wife catches me in the act of snow blowing

Today is the day after a big snow storm in Michigan.  We got near a foot of snow here in Michigan's State Capital City.  Very little is moving in our neighborhood.  It was time to pull out my Honda snowblower which had a few challenging moments pushing through the wet stuff.

I wonder how many Michigan snowbirds in Florida really miss the snow, the ice and the power outages.

 

Happy snow-covered Thursday here in mid-Michigan

My son and my grandson would really get into this snow.

Our neighborhood is just starting to come awake with the sound of snowblowers after a really big storm that came through yesterday and early today.  Nothing's moving on the streets.  The mayor has warned people to use them only for emergency travel.  We have plenty of food and wood for the fireplace if we lose power.  

But what impresses me are our neighbors.  They beat me to cleaning off the sidewalks.  They did ours too.  It's a regular thing for them to watch out for each other.  Again, I'm impressed.

I will be going out shortly to clear our driveway and front and back steps.  My grandkids would enjoy this, at least three of them would.  

Here's the results of my experiment with time lapse videos using my iPhone 6 plus

Do you carry an iPhone in your pocket or purse?  Have you used the time lapse feature of the video camera?

I'm determined to learn how to effectively use its video features to tell a story or to just do a raw recording of an event like today's snow storm.  It's snowing hard and I did this through our bedroom window.  I have more to learn about time lapse, but I like my start, maybe even during the storm.

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As a big winter storm starts, a video to help me to take iPhone time lapses

I've had my new iPhone 6+ for about six months.  I'm still learning its features, including time lapse.  I've seen plenty of time lapses, but never understood how it was made, especially on the iPhone.

Today, we are supposed to have a big winter storm with plenty of blowing snow, a perfect time to try time lapse.  This video seems like a good introduction.

 

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We just got in from our one mile RunKeeper walk before Winter Storm "Al" hits

 

A selfie right after we finished our walk in the neighborhood this morning.

 

 

With the coming of Winter Storm Al today, we decided to walk early before the snow and ice comes.  Our neighborhood had just become walkable and then the weather changed.  If weather forecasters are right, I should get plenty of exercise today and tomorrow blowing snow.  

Before it accumulates too much, I have to read about taking time lapse videos with my iPhone.  

Has anybody tried that?  How'd it work?

Why Winter Storm Al?  Before they were born, we gave each of our grandkids a codename.  Our daughter Krista is pregnant with a boy.  We started calling him Samson and then we found that he was really a pretty pathetic character.  Not a good name.  Then we changed to Al.  We'll know our new grandson's name in a month or so.

Now it's time to wait for the snow to accumulate.  We are told an inch an hour.

Getting ready for a big Michigan snowstorm today

 

There was no snow yesterday when we walked at Hawk Island. That's changing in the next couple of hours, forecasters say.

 Is today's snow warning here in Lansing, just another weather false alarm?  Forecasters say this is going to bring up to a foot of snow.  We've checked our pantry, our fridge, our car's in the garage, have wood for the fireplace and have a few DVD's picked out.  My snowblower is accessible and I have plenty of gas.  We are ready.

  

Looking out our kitchen window this morning. No snow yet.

 

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My wife and I just packed our toothbrushes and jammies and took off to wherever the car stopped

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On Lansing's southwest side, gas was $1.99 per gallon late yesterday afternoon

The time has come for me to be honest about my story and its effect on my life

 

We started with my wife and me and we are now up to eleven.

The time has come for me to be honest about my story.

I’ve really struggled to put my life into words.  I feel like I’m sitting in an airplane with a barf bag over my mouth trying to vomit and very little is coming out.

I’m at the point where I need to stick my fingers down my emotional throat to admit what’s been a big part of me all my life and to draw this part of my life story to a close.

This involves changing the name of my father on my birth certificate.  I’ve come to the point where I have to admit to the world and me who my real dad is.

Let me be clear by using a churchy word.  I have been blessed beyond measure all my life.  Starting from the present, I have a wife who has loved me unconditionally for more than three decades.

My two kids are great.  They have wonderful spouses and my five grandchildren make me smile always.  We’ve always had a house and we’ve always had food to eat.

Along the way, I had a mom who was heaven sent.  She too loved me without condition and she gave up everything to see that I had a chance at life.

The sticking point for me has always been my father.  He abandoned me and my mother when I was 18 months old.  He walked out, never came back, never called and never wrote.  He vanished.

This happened in the forties when social services were non-existent and when it was just tough luck when a spouse skipped out.  

We looked real closely at replacing our old laser printer with a new Wi-Fi printer

 

My HP 1012 printer purchased in 2007 at an old CompUSA store.

 

I remember pretty clearly going into our CompUSA store in Lansing and buying our inexpensive laser printer.  I think we paid less than a hundred bucks.  It has worked really well since then.  We can print from our laptops using wi-fi.  Works like a charm. However, there are two issues.

First, the toner cartridges are a little more than $61 with a new up-to-date printer costing around $90.  For us, the cartridge should last more than a year.  A downside, our old printer doesn't allow us to print from our phones or our iPads.

We went to Sam's Club and looked at their printer choices and tried to carefully weigh the issue of keeping the old versus the new.  It's always tempting to get a new "device" even if it is a printer.

Finally, we opted to keep the old printer and revisit the choices when the present cartridge runs out of toner.

Do any of you have wi-fi printers where you can print from an iPad or iPhone?

 

One of the printer choices at Sam's Club.

 

 

We looked real closely at replacing our old laser printer with a new Wi-Fi printer

My HP 1012 printer purchased in 2007 at an old CompUSA store.

I remember pretty clearly going into our CompUSA store in Lansing and buying our inexpensive laser printer.  I think we paid less than a hundred bucks.  It has worked really well since then.  We can print from our laptops using wi-fi.  Works like a charm. However, there are two issues.

First, the toner cartridges are a little more than $61 with a new up-to-date printer costing around $90.  For us, the cartridge should last more than a year.  A downside, our old printer doesn't allow us to print from our phones or our iPads.

We went to Sam's Club and looked at their printer choices and tried to carefully weigh the issue of keeping the old versus the new.  It's always tempting to get a new "device" even if it is a printer.

Finally, we opted to keep the old printer and revisit the choices when the present cartridge runs out of toner.

Do any of you have wi-fi printers where you can print from an iPad or iPhone?

One of the printer choices at Sam's Club.

Baby-boomers: Have you told your texting grandkids about having to buy Air Mail stamps?

 

I found these Air Mail stamps on an old letter.

 

 

How many of you remember the days of Air Mail?  If you wanted something to get to another state or part of the country, you'd have to go to the U.S. Post Office and buy Air Mail stamps.  This would mean that something say sent from Michigan to Florida might get there in a few days?

Now our kids and our grandkids can send something by texting or e-mail and get it there instantaneously.  This includes photos, and documents.

Before the days of Fed Ex and other expedited shippers that was the common way to "quickly" move things across the country.

It was part of an era where going to the stamp window at the local post office turned into an occasion where you had to pick from a wide-variety of stamps, including commemoratives that honored everything and with new ones coming out on a regular basis.

 

Why was my new NIV Journal Edition Bible by Zondervan printed in China?

 

I found the Printed in China annotation on the inside of my new Zondervan Bible.

 

I got a new Bible for Christmas where I can more easily journal and take notes.  It's a New International Version (NIV) and it's published by Zondervan in Grand Rapids, about fifty miles from here.  It has been the center of many debates about American companies moving production to China and other places.

Zondervan has been an anchor in the west Michigan region for the publication of Christian books and it has centered much of its attention on working class Christians who are affected by the movement of U.S. production overseas.

Why would this Bible be printed in China?  How much cheaper was it to print it there, rather than here?  Irony rules in this action because the Bible is banned in China.  Is Zondervan supporting an economy that is anathema to the message that it's distributing through its books and other materials?  

This is the cover page of my new Bible printed in China.

Baby-boomers: Did you participate in any of the Vietnam War protests back in the sixties?

 

Delta College professor Gerry Faverman speaks at a Vietnam War debate at Delta College in northern Michigan. I'm in the seats on the left side of the dias.

 

 

In my mom's large stash of old photos, I've gotten to the sixties and found this one of taken at a Vietnam War debate at Delta College just outside of Bay City, Michigan.  It happened around 1965 or 66 at the height of the draft and of the action in Southeast Asia.

I was a sophomore at the community college which was a constant buzz of antiwar rhetoric.  Protestors there were loud and strident, as well as nonstop.  In classes, anybody appearing sympathetic to what the U.S. was doing in Vietnam were either shouted down or bullied into keeping quiet.

Looking at today's raucous political climate, it's easy to forget the sixties when U.S. soldiers could come home on leave in uniform to have people taunt them and accuse them of being killers.

I want my grandkids to know that I was involved during this time with the on-campus Students For Victor In Vietnam.  I saw the United States as the good guys.  We sponsored a big on-campus rally which featured a debate between two faculty members.  It attracted lots of student and media attention.  

That period shaped the rest of my life.  The draft hung over my head during that whole time and kept me looking over my shoulder for the heavy breath of the military.  When the draft lottery was created, my number was ten.  

How do I feel about U.S. involvement in Vietnam?  Have they changed since then?  Yes.  

Has the scourge of dandruff been overcome in our culture?

Do you remember when shampoo commercials dominated television and magazines?

Are you old enough to remember when dandruff was a big thing in our culture?  There was a time when you could walk into a church service and see somebody scratching their head or you could see the little white flecks of skin on a dark piece of clothing.

I remember having dandruff and the times when I would sit in front of the television scratching my head with a comb.  I was maybe teen or pre-teen.  And I had lots of hair and now I don't.  Television commercials were dominated by dandruff shampoos like Head & Shoulders and others.  Dandruff was a condition that really touched our culture.

Look around you.  Do you see any evidence of dandruff?  White specks on people's clothing?  Shelves of anti-dandruff products in stores?  Head scratching?

One minute it was there and the next it was gone.  Could it be that there are lots of aging baby-boomers who have little or no hair?  Does baldness make a difference?  Where do shampoo-makers advertise these days?  

The top of my head is pretty much hairless these days.  Check this picture of me five-years ago when my oldest grandson was born.  I had a hint of hair.  Today, the hint has vanished.

I'm holding my grandson here as I show off the top of my head with a little hair.

 

Memories of raising Michigan's speed limit to 70, as legislature gets ready to raise it to 75-80

 

This picture was taken the day Gov. John Engler signed the bill raising Michigan's speed limit to 70. I worked for the bill''s sponsor (right) Sen. Doug Carl of Macomb County. I don't remember the date, but I had hair (left).

 

The state of Michigan seems to be on the cusp of raising its speed limit from 70 to 75/80.  Did you know that?  And have you thought about what effect this will have on driving our state's freeways?  The number of people killed on our roads far outstrips those killed in any other form of violence.

I remember the last raise of the speed limit vividly because I worked as the legislative director for the bill's sponsor, Sen. Doug Carl of Macomb County.  He became convicted of the need because of his daily drive between Lansing and his home north of Detroit.

The bill went through two committees with hearings, but I never saw the everyday driver share many of their views about driving faster.  With social media and somebody who could facilitate that discussion, I wonder if that would change.  Would there be more reaction?

Is this the time to raise the speed limit even higher?  How many lives will be lost because of the change?  How well is the speed limit being enforced now?

I can't wait for driverless cars.  I think I'd feel safer with one.

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