Hello NaBloPoMo; Curse You, NaBloPoMo!

So here we are again. November. National Blog Posting Month. Time to come up with 30 ideas and then turn each into a blog post that is entertaining or informative or both or neither. This post will be the latter.

As a refresher, November is when thousands of novelists-to-be try to crank out a book in 30 days, in an exercise called NaNoWRiMo (National Novel Writing Month). April is NaPoWriMo (poetry) and I guess the blogosphere felt left out so they made NaBloPoMo. I can't be certain why they chose the same month as NaNoWriMo but it may have been started by someone who wanted an excuse to not write a novel ("No I can't do the novel thing, dammit, I'm blogging").

Things I plan on covering this month:

• The marijuana ballot issues in Ohio
• Dogs
• How thankful I am for something or other. 

That's it so far. I haven't really thought this through. November 1st always sneaks up on me, despite it coming reliably after October 31st every year I've been alive. 

So thanks in advance for reading. Feel free to comment, especially if you want to say nice things.

Hell Year

Today is the one year anniversary of my "little incident." I am speaking of course of my slippage on a tiny patch of ice and the tearing of my quadriceps tendon. My dogs played a big role but I don't harbor any malice, except that I've renamed them Extra Stupid and Beyond Extra Stupid. They each answer to both, which is due in large part to me feeding them cookies when I say it.

When I asked my surgeon, the terrific Damien Billow from the Cleveland Clinic, when I would be normal again, he resisted the obvious joke and said it would be a year from the surgery, which was actually in May. I was pretty pissed at him for being so pessimistic. Did he not realize I'm an exceptional healer? Did he not know I needed it to be faster than that?

It turns out he was right and probably undershot it a tad. I won't be 100% by May 1, and that's partly due to me being a bigger than the average person and the leg having even further to go to be able to do its job. I'd say it may be more than 90%, which a few months ago seemed unreachable.

I missed a lot of stuff. My daughter's engagement party, an entire season of concerts in 3 bands, our community garden, and the ability to go just about anywhere. But the one thing I did was work hard enough to be able to walk my daughter down the aisle in Toronto and dance with her at the reception. I had to skip the hora but I'll get over it.

I've had to make a career change, which is still in progress,

I've learned to depend on others. And to be patient with people who have trouble walking. And that all handicap access is not created equal.

And I've learned that the love and support of the people I love is pretty much everything.

Tomorrow begins the year after Hell Year. We'll call it Great Year. The fun starts right now.

Colonel Mustard in the hotel room with a ...

At the Blackwell hotel in Columbus, which is terrific by the way, our room had the following:

1 set of fireplace tools
0 fireplaces

There is only one use for fireplace tools if there is no fireplace.

A word about housing and Millenials.

It turns out that millennials are not that into buying houses. For reasons that range from desired freedom of mobility to not trusting the "system" that created the financial crises we saw in the late 2000's, millenials are choosing to rent.

Which has led to inflated rental rates which are getting more and more out of whack, making it harder to build wealth.

I can't address the mobility issue, except to say that unless you're going to move in fewer than five years you should look at the numbers. Market trends are solid if not spectacular and buying may be smart.

Recent changes in the lending system have brought low down payment loans back into the picture, but now they're safer. Check out FHA and USDA loans.They key thing to remember is that our homes are not ATM's. The money that goes in needs to stay in. This is where people got in so much trouble in 2008.

I read someplace that if you want to retire a millionaire you need to start buying real estate in your 30's. With the interest rates at 3.5% this is a golden opportunity. The people who take advantage of it today will be the ones who in ten years will be glad they did.

Some really interesting maps

My mom sends me stuff and sometimes it's very interesting. This is one of those times.

The email contained many such maps. Here are three.

This map shows the world divided into 7 sections (each with a distinct color) and with each section containing 1 billion people

On a similar theme--

And here are all the world's internet connections in 1969

Music Break

I DVR Conan  every night for the sole purpose of fast forwarding past the starlets, and shenanigans and straight to the musical guest, in hopes of discovering someone I've never seen. That's how I discovered Florence and the Machine among others.

This week it's Mariachi El Bronx with 'Wildfires.'

On National Championships and Cell Phones

1942, 1954, 1957, 1961, 1968, 1970, 2002, 2014

These are the years that Ohio State can lay claim to a National Championship. Savvy fans know that 1961 and 1970 were not consensus years and some do not count them. I don't think my dad did.

Every championship until last night happened during his lifetime.

In 1942 as a ten year old I'm not sure he was very much into it, what with WWII and surviving the Depression and all. And college football was a minor diversion. In 1942 sports was baseball, and everything else was something to do until baseball season.

Dad was a student at OSU in 1954 and 1957. There is probably nothing like being a student during a national championship year. I got close to seeing that first hand in 1979 but we lost in the Rose Bowl.

In 2002 we were 1200 miles apart but spent a lot of time on the phone and the IM (remember instant messaging?). He never saw another football game.

He would have been so damned happy this year, beating Alabama then winning it all. The only thing that would have made him happier was if we could have beaten Notre Dame to win it.

Several years ago I wrote a piece following a win over Michigan. It was during the Cooper years when a win over Michigan was a precious thing. If you don't feel like clicking over, I'll say that it featured an attempt by me to call my dad from the game, because he couldn't be there. It was a chance to be together for a special moment, and while we couldn't really hear each other due to the noise, we were connected.

I thought about this last night as Urban Meyer raged at an official near the end of the game when he couldn't understand why the clock had stopped. He reminded me of Woody, and Woody reminded me of my dad. My dad would take that as a compliment. In some version of things he and Woody were watching the game together and my dad couldn't wait to tell me about it.

My cell service doesn't go that far so I guess it'll have to wait.  Meanwhile, let's see how many more times we can make him and Woody happy.

TBDBITL

The Best Damn Band In The Land

Has an album called , 'Time and Change' and you can find it on Spotify right here.

Lots of nice Buckeye stuff on the day of the big game. Also some great standards and show tunes and video game songs. Oh! And the Time Warp!

Real Estate Numbers in 60 seconds

Some of you all like to keep track of the housing market to varying degrees. Here is a one minute run down of a few basic numbers FYI

Farewell to a Favorite

(This is a few days late)

One of our longstanding Christmas Eve traditions has been to drive around and look at decorations. We would make it a contest between neighborhoods and try to seek out the very best in lighting magnificence. Our two favorite places turned out to be very different. One had every sort of inflatable, lightable, animatronic, cutesy, gaudy, cheesy, decoration imaginable, to the point where it was just plain fun. They had a horseshoe driveway and you drove in, circled around and drove out. There was a place to stop and put in a donation for electricity. We would often make two or three trips around.

The other place was the polar opposite. It was just lights, very tastefully strung on every single corner of the house, on every shrub, and up every main and secondary branch of every tree. Then it was set to music and controlled by computer. We would sit in front of the house and watch the show. It was jaw dropping.

The second house went on the market this year and I drove past a couple of week ago to see if they were still doing the lights. There was a large cherry-picker in the yard to take the lights off the trees and presumably the house.

Alas, another thing we love falls by the wayside.

Today's 'Why I Hate Facebook' Moment

There are perhaps 13-19 legitimate reasons to hate Facebook, and most of them involve privacy. I have read them and I have essentially decided to ignore them with the vague hope they won't come 'round to bite me in the ass somewhere down the road.

One of the other reasons is the way Facebook chooses to populate our feeds. What I want is for every post from every friend to appear in strict chronological order, giving me the option to tell Facebook to stop showing me posts by people who annoy me but not to the point of unfriending them. How hard is that?

I've noticed that lately it seems to be dredging up old posts more than it used to. How that manifested itself today is I saw a post by a friend announcing that her dog died.

"Aww," I commented, "he was a good dog."

It turns out that this dog died weeks ago. Now why, Facebook, would you facilitate the opening of old wounds? And why would you so readily assist me is making such a gaffe? What monetary gains are there to be made by allowing random, past posts to bubble to the top as though they are new?

Let me join my voice with the millions who share my anger about this. Stop it, Facebook. Just stop it.

Sunday Tunes

Here is a little gem from one of my favorite newer bands.

Happy Boxing Day

I like to imagine that everyone is in their living rooms or dens or front yards with pillow-soft gloves, circling each other warily, hesitant to throw the first punch, hoping not to get tagged. I like to think that each family has set up a round-robin tournament and the winner gets the last slice of pie. I like to think the Holyfield family disqualifies certain members,

But I know that really they're all out exchanging stuff, and I know the stores are a far more dangerous place to be than in your living room with Uncle Ray trying to knock you on your ass.

Chanukah trees and Christmas menorahs

The timing of the Christmas tree has always been a tricky thing. Since our house was 75 percent Jewish the object was to try to have the tree up for as few Chanukah days as possible while also trying to enjoy the tree as much as possible, with the understanding that the net enjoyment of the tree is greater during days before than after Christmas Day. If this sounds like too much math, well, it is.

Some years the Jewish calendar is my friend, with Chanukah beginning very early in December and finishing in time to have the tree up for a week before Christmas. Other years Chanukah shoved me into a snow drift and laughed at me, starting a few days before Christmas and finishing whenever it damn well pleased. Those years the two factions had to compromise on the tree date, meaning neither side got what they wanted but both sides were happy. Usually if Chanukah didn't end by the 20th the tree was going up anyway.

And for the record there is something beautiful about lighting Chanukah candles on Christmas Eve,

The thing about it is that I've become really grumpy about the early start to the Christmas season that Big Retail foists upon us. Black Friday is depressing in its swallowing of Thanksgiving, and when I hear Christmas music on October 1st at Walgreens I'm ready to jab someone with a Hallmark ornament. If I were king I'd decree that nothing starts until December. I wouldn't want to see one roll of wrapping paper or hear even a solitary sleigh bell in the distance. Exceptions would be extended to people who have to ship stuff to Canada. I mean do you realize that nearly ten percent of the year is spent in Christmas season? Ten percent!

I'm not part of the put-Christ-back-in-Christmas movement, whose intentions are good but whose cause is lost. But I really think the season is better when it's shorter, more concentrated. Like putting up my tree on December 20. It's five days of enjoyment but it's a really good five days.

Yes, I know my cause is lost too. And as for how long the tree stays up AFTER Christmas, well that's another blog post.

Re-run Tuesday

This is from 2011 but is appropriate for the season. The groups I play in are smack in the middle of concert season and we've been playing Christmas and chanukah music for weeks.

 Here are some thoughts I had about it a couple of years ago. 

Some thoughts on handicap access

One of the things I've become an expert in is handicap access. I've gone through all the stages: wheel chair, walker, crutches, cane and just plain gimpy. To a fully-abled person the various ramps, doors, railings and access-ways seem more than sufficient. And I'm certain that most of them are in full compliance with the 1991 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, if not the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design. But I'm also certain that some places have had to fudge on those standards a little to retrofit an old building or just to (understandably) save money. While the fully-abled look at them and think they're close enough to the standards and should be okay, those of us who use them can tell. If a wheelchair ramp is too steep or a corner too tight we feel it. And what may be a good ramp angle for a wheelchair is not necessarily good for a walker. Any downward slope is tricky for a person using a walker. If you see a person with a cane or a walker on a ramp, take a second to see if they may need assistance.

Another problem I've noticed is that often times the doors to a handicap bathroom have powerful automatic closers, and anyone using a walker or a pair of crutches has trouble holding open the door and navigating in and out. If you see an opportunity to help someone with the door please take it. They'll appreciate it.

Handicap parking. I have to confess that even though I can't wait to not need it anymore, it's pretty awesome. Most of the time there's a space open but there are some places where no matter when you go they are taken (Eton Chagrin Blvd I'm looking at you). I didn't try to shop anywhere on Black Friday but I'd bet handicap spaces were at a premium, even at WalMart who has some of the most generous handicap parking of anyone. If you're one of those people who parks for 'just a second' in a handicap spot, please stop.

All of these structural remedies are expensive and I appreciate that almost everywhere I want to go is accessible thanks to people spending money, but in the winter everyone could do two very easy, very cheap things to make access even better: shovel and salt. The other day the very worst shoveled spaces in the parking lot at a local retail establishment were the handicap spaces. And more than one ramp in town were icy. From the parking spaces to the ramps to the walkways, the thing people who have trouble getting around need most is sure footing. Winter is scary enough.

So to sum up how you can help people who we have always assumed were already being helped sufficiently by the 1991 ADA Standards for Accessible Design:

1. Hold bathroom doors
2. Look for people who need a hand on ramps and curbs
3. Park where you belong
4. Shovel and salt when it's your responsibility. If you're a boss, make it someone's responsibility.

Thanks for reading.

3 Cool Things I Heard Today

While I'm rehabbing I like to listen to podcasts. One that I'm particularly fond of is StarTalk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Today he said three things that blew my mind.

1. All the gold that has ever been mined would fit in a standard barn. (Also gold is denser than lead and fast drivers should be called gold-foots). 

2. The gravitational pull from an obstetrician on the baby he/she's delivering is greater than the gravitational pull of Mars on that same baby (okay maybe not mind blowing but it's cool that someone calculated that). 

3. If you could extract all the negatively charged particles from one cubic centimeter of the nose of the space shuttle and affix them to the base of the launch pad directly beneath, the pull between them and the positively charged particles in the nose would be great enough that the shuttle could not launch. 

Ch-ch-ch-changes

First, this post has been cooking for about a week but I have waited to go live until after NaBloPoMo. I didn't do NaBloPoMo this year because of stuff you will read about in a minute, and because I was busy re-doing the blog, but I was with the bloggers in spirit. I hope to join my brothers and sisters next year for all the blogapalooza fun.

Second, let me say Changes is for me only a medium-favorite Bowie song (though I really like the lines--And these children that you spit on / As they try to change their worlds / Are immune to you consultations / They're quite aware what they're going through), but I can't title this post Young Americans, after all. Or Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.

It's been a period of changes for me. As many of you know I tore my quadriceps tendon back in March. I had surgery, then spent most of the summer in various casts and splints and wheelchairs and walkers. And just when I was released to go back to work, my relationship with the Aurora Kennel ended. So now I'm working on strengthening my leg and searching for a job.

So what I've done is re-brand this blog. It is now called Time and Change, which are some of the words to the Ohio State Alma Mater, Carmen, Ohio. I kept most of the posts but deleted a few, and tidied up the junk. .

In the new blog I'm going to feature my writing a little more prominently, to which end I've also freshened up my web site.

And I'm going to try to use the blog to promote my real estate business, though not in an annoying way, I promise. For those who didn't know, I've been in real estate for several years, but I've kept it on the down-low to avoid any conflicts with my other job. But now I'm pulling off the cloak of invisibility; I'm ramping up my intensity.

[Quick Annoying Promotional Segment] If you know of anyone who is thinking about buying or selling a home, or is interested in investing in real estate, or is interested in a career in real estate, leave me a note in the comments and I'll contact you.

But this isn't going to be just a real estate and writing blog. It's going to be a music blog and an arts blog and a world blog and a blog that makes silly lists and shows you the picture of the elephant with his head stuck in a peanut butter jar as long as I can relate it back to something personal. In short I'm going to post the same wide range of things I've always done, trying to entertain and maybe make you think a little. If you have forgotten what those posts were like please take a few minutes to browse the blog archives, Personal favorites include How to Play the Cymbals, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, and Sometimes a Parade is Not Just a Parade.

And if you know of a job, let me know.


Thanks for reading---FJS

On the cutesy photos of kids and dogs

I've linked a good article on an issue that bothers me on nearly a daily basis. We are inundated on the internet and Facebook and Pinterest and countless others with photos of cute little babies and dogs, face to face or one on top of the other, and the reaction is supposed to be "Awwww." For me it's "Yikes!"

I'm sure that most of the time kids and dogs mix just fine. But sometimes they do not. What we don't see are the pictures of the ones who were bit in the face, who will need years of plastic surgeries to repair the damage.

One thing I've learned in years of being in the dog business is that a lot of people aren't good are reading dogs. And if you have a good dog you need to understand there are times when even a good dog will lose his cool, when he'll be forced to snap.

We had a dog named Kendall who was very sweet and good with the kids. But our son somehow stepped on or fell on her leg and she turned on him and snapped. No contact was made but it was a lesson for him and a reminder for us. You can never be 100% comfortable when dogs and kids are together. You must always be vigilant. You must always be teaching the children how to be dog smart and respectful.

The dog-child relationship can be wonderful, but first it needs to be safe.

Thanks for Reading--John

On Tempting Fate

So a week ago Thursday evening I was outside enjoying slightly milder temperatures, and since it was the latter part of March the following thought ran through my head: "It looks like I made it through another winter without serious mishap."

Let me say that I'm scared of falling and I'm SUPER careful when the ground is snowy or icy. I walk like an old man and take my good old time. I expend serious brainpower focusing on exactly where to step and on maintaining my balance. I've been lucky for a couple of years. So when we hit what felt like the turning point I congratulated myself. Prematurely, it turns out.

The next morning as we were getting ready to drive to Toronto to celebrate my daughter's engagement, I put my two dogs on leashes and headed out the door to put them in the kennel. Now, had I been paying attention I would have noticed the tiniest layer of ice on the porch. My foot hit the ice, I tried to catch my balance, and because 130 pounds of dogs were simultaneously trying to yank me off the porch, my thigh muscle was asked to do more than it could and it tore, probably in a few places if you go by the numerous giant bruises up and down my leg.

So now my leg can bear almost no weight and I have to crutch around the house. The doctor says it will be a couple of more weeks until I'm significantly better. I've been lucky to have tremendous coverage by my stalwart staff, and if you visit sometime in the next couple of weeks you are likely to see a new face or two who are filling in. I may be there too, sitting on the bench as a greeter and maybe hobbling over to the computer to help you check in or out. But I'm not going to let any dogs drag me around for a while.

Next year I will not trust winter to be gone until the middle of July. And, my dogs go out one at a time from now on. One at a time.



Thanks for reading--John