My Substitute Reality -You're just jealous cause the little voices only talk to me-

Friday May 19, 2006

Who is this team and where did they come from?

Filed under: Life — don @ 7:16 am

We have a new basketball team in Los Angeles. They go by the name “The Clippers” and I don’t recall ever hearing about them before. Now they are in the playoffs and have tied up the series at 3-3.

I’m pretty sure I would have known about this team if the LA Kobes’ weren’t here but that’s the way it’s been for the last several years. Maybe they came from the east with a name like Clippers. Or maybe they all used to be barbers.

Whatever the deal is we are glad to have a team that actually plays like a team and not a superstar and friends.

The Phoenix Suns remind me of the old Pepperdine(or was it Loyola) team that used the theory that you didn’t need defense if you could outscore your opponent. I guess that works if your opponent is in worse shape than you but these Clippers seem to have some young guys who can run with the best.

I always liked the Suns but I didn’t grow up in Phoenix so I will cheer for this new team from LA.

GO CLIPPERS!

Wednesday April 12, 2006

OFF WITH HIS FOOT!

Filed under: Life — don @ 5:05 pm

I’m not sure who I get to blame.  I don’t know if it’s from mom’s side or dad’s side but it didn’t just happen.

By now you’re asking yourself “What is he talking about?”   I’m talking about my lower pods, my lower appendage ends, in other words, my feet.

It seems I have been blessed  in one way in that I don’t have flat feet.  Although that has probably saved me from early foot pain, I do suffer from the opposite affliction.  I have “high arches”.  In fact the podiatrist said they are unusually high.

A little background is in order.  For the last year or so I’ve had a pain on the side of my foot that comes and goes.  It mainly hurt only if I was walking but lately it’s gotten to the point where it hurt most of the time.  The pain has also started radiating up to my ankle so I decided it was time to see a Dr.  My GP didn’t have a clue so he referred me to a pod doc.  I saw him today and that’s when he told me my problem.  He gave me an injection of cortisone and made a temporary cushion.   I guess those of us with extremely high arches tend to walk on the outside of the foot which creates above normal stress.

The cure is orthotics.  So now I have an appointment to get my foot lathered in plaster of Paris.  I’ll keep you informed.

Sunday April 2, 2006

This pains me but…

Filed under: Life — don @ 7:50 pm

GO UCLA!

Saturday March 11, 2006

Hail in the Valley?

Filed under: Life — don @ 2:41 pm

Oh yes we’ve got hail. Right here in The Valley. That starts with H and that rhymes with ummmm, nothing I can think of. Here’s a couple of shots of the hail.

Hail in the Valley

Here’s a close up so you can actually see the pellets.

Hail in the Valley close-up

Snow level is supposed to come down to 1500 feet. I’ll let you know if it gets this low but we are actually closer to 1000 feet.

Friday March 10, 2006

Grandpa again!

Filed under: Life — don @ 10:06 pm

Carsten Balch was born today.  He’s my second grandson and we are all excited.  Here’s the details.

Date:    March 10th, 2006 (his Great Uncle Daryl’s birthday too)

Time:   11:35 AM

Weight:   7 lbs 13 ozs

Length:    21″

Appearance:     Beautiful(according to his dad and we all believe him)

Sunday January 29, 2006

New phone

Filed under: Geek,Life — don @ 9:08 am

Betty and I had been using Samsung X427 phones for about the last 2 years. They were ok, nothing fancy. Small flip phones that had a pretty color screen but if you wanted more than the 5 pictures that came with them you had to pay to download new ones. They had the same deal with ringtones. New ones had to come from Cingular. They weren’t expensive but I hate paying even $.99 for a short tune.

Last week we got new Samsung D357 phones. Talk about features! They have the new Push-To-Talk feature that Cingular hopes will steal people away from Nextel. PTT is basically nationwide walkie-talkie. I’m not sure how much we’ll use it but you don’t get the great deal on the phone if you don’t get PTT.

They are also Bluetooth equipped. That means they can interface with any other Bluetooth device like a wireless headset, PDA, Camera, or PC. I got a USB Bluetooth adapter for my computer and learned some cool things I can do with the phones.

I can take any picture and turn it into wallpaper. I can take any song and turn it into a ringtone. When I say any I mean any that are capable of being digitized. Of course you can digitize any picture using a scanner and you can digitize any song using mp3 software so I guess that means “any”.

Another cool feature is you can assign a picture and ringtone to someone in your address book as a caller id. Now when Betty calls me it pops up her picture and plays “Barbie Girl” by Aqua(her idea). When I call her my picture pops up and it plays “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen(again, her idea).

The phone doesn’t have a camera but I don’t mind because Boeing doesn’t allow camera phones anyways. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of employees using them but I don’t see any reason to break the rules. If I want to take a picture I’ll use my camera.

So that’s the latest excitement in our lives.

Wednesday January 18, 2006

A short History of Mankind

Filed under: Life — don @ 10:00 am

Humans existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunter/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer & would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in winter.

The 2 most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. 

These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into 2 distinct subgroups: Liberals and Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early human ancestors were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as “the Conservative movement.”

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as ‘girliemen.’

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided. Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting revolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn’t “fair” to make the pitcher also bat.Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women.  Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, Marines, athletes and generally anyone who works productively.  Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work
for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to “govern” the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tame and created a business of trying to get MORE for nothing.

Here ends today’s lesson in world history:

It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to respond to the above before simply laughing and forwarding it. A Conservative will be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately.

Editor’s note:  I got this in an email.  I can’t take credit for it.

Monday January 2, 2006

Not the best New Year but..

Filed under: Life — don @ 9:41 pm

New Years eve day Betty woke up early with some chest pain. She decided she should go to the Emergency room so I took her to Northridge Hospital. They put her on an EKG and said her heart wasn’t beating quite right so they called her cardiologist. He wanted to keep her for observation so she spent New Years Eve in the hospital and I spent it home alone.

Ann doesn’t like when her mom is sick and felt she should have some company so she stayed the night. I guess they rang in the new year watching Dick Clark.

She stayed one more night then this morning they gave her a stress test. Her heart was working fine during the test so this afternoon I brought her home.

Tonight she says she feels good so let’s hope she stays that way.

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