Pause and Stare

As I grow older I have noticed that I make more ‘mistakes’. It seems to be an exponential rate of speed and frequency. These mistakes are not the errors I made on quizzes or tests in a previous life, though I’m fairly certain those mistakes have increased as well. No, these mistakes would more accurately fall into the category of slip ups, blunders and oversights. Perhaps an example would help.

When I have driven my truck to a particular destination and intend to ‘detruck’; if we can ‘deplane’, should we not be able to ‘detruck’? But I digress. Since I normally want my truck to be locked while I enter a store, I generally hop out (that’s a misnomer,since I no longer ‘hop’), flip the switch on the door and proceed into the retailer of my choice. It is at this point in the past where my ‘heart would skip a beat’ fearing I had locked my keys in the truck. A couple times in the past few years my greatest fear became a reality.

I’ve asked myself why does this occur more frequently than in the past. I have come up with a couple reasons for the uptick in frequency:
1. It’s to easy to do
2. I’m older with fewer brain cells
3. For some unknown reason I’m in a hurry

But, as you might expect, I have a solution. It’s not a brilliant solution, which no doubt surprises some of you with even fewer brain cells. No, it is not brilliant, but rather extremely simple. Most superlative solutions are simple in nature. The solution I have been using is ‘slow down’. This is rather simple for us “elderly” people. As a demonstration of how slowing down works, I’ll refer back to my ‘detrucking’. I remove the keys from the ignition, open my door, step out of the truck, and just before I push the lock button I stop, stare at the keys in my hand, push the button, and proceed to my destination. The secret is the ‘pause & stare’ prior to hitting the button. In order to become proficient you must practice.

The technique also works if you decide to go from your kitchen to your den to retrieve something from the den that really belongs in the kitchen. It happens! Before taking your first step from the kitchen to the den, that’s right, ‘pause and stare’. In this case you will have nothing to actually stare at! However, you must ‘pause and stare’ at the mental image of that which you wish to retrieve. I never said this was easy.

I’m sure while reading this you’ve thought about opportunities for using this technique. However, by the time you’ve finished reading you have forgotten what these were. Correct? What should you have done when the use of this brilliant technique popped into your mind. ‘Pause and Stare’...I do think you’ve got it.

jim
4/23/2010

Rules of Writing

I’ve read an article entitled '12 1/2 Rules for Writing'. One of the rules said you must write everyday in order to improve your writing skills. The article goes on to say a writer reads, a writer reads a lot, a writer reads ‘all the time’. I’ve started doing something else the article suggested. I’m developing a list of words ‘that I like’. I’ve always had favorite words, but I’ve never developed a list of them. Now I am.

Don’t you just love some of these words? Words like beaucoup and poppycock for example. The trick is to find opportunities to use these words in my writing. I look forward to the time I’m able to use feckless and rectitude for example. I’ve always been fascinated with words, their origins, and of course their definitions. I think I’ve found a new hobby!

I was reading about psychological testing. They discussed ‘illusory superiority’ and ‘illusory inferiority’. These two fancy sounding words, are of course juxtaposed. Illusory superiority defines a person who believes they are far more competent than they really are. Illusory inferiority, as you’ve probably deduced, is quite the opposite. This humble individual (I can’t help thinking of myself), believes they aren’t nearly as competent as those around them when they really are. I believe I fall on both sides of these definitions.

Today I drove to Wana RV. We bought our Sunset Trail trailer from them in late 2006. My reason for visiting Wana was to determine if they would make some repairs on our trailer. They wrote up a work order to handle the repairs in May. While there I couldn’t resist taking a look at some of the newest models. They had quite an inventory. There must have been 40 trailers and 5th wheels on their lot. Makes me think people are coming back to RVing. For a rainy and cool day, there were quite a few people looking.

Tomorrow we’re going to Stow, OH and staying with my sister-in-law, Carol, for a few days. Anytime Mary Ellen and I take a road trip you can count on a Casino being involved. This trip is no different. It seems Carol has a ‘comped room’ at the Mountaineer in West Virginia. While Mary and Carol are at the casino, I will be helping my sister Pat sort thru pictures and clippings in an effort to narrow down her collection to a workable amount and eliminate some of the clutter that’s starting to overwhelm her. When I get back home, I have to do the same with the ‘clutter’ of my own!

We're in Stow now. My favorite sister-in-law really caters to me. She had a bag of cheese popcorn waiting for me along with a good bar of my favorite soap for the shower. Of course there were small bagels, peanut butter and orange juice. What more could a guy ask for. She's far too nice to me, but then I deserve it.

The news from the 'casino twins' is not good. When they quit gambling at 9 p.m. last night, I knew things were in the deficit column. They will return to Stow today, assuming they still have an automobile. If they call and ask me to pick them up at the bus station, I'll know things are even worse than I thought!

I've written enough. Rule 13 is: "know when to quit".

jim

HOME

As all of you know, or can imagine, arriving home after 98 days away presents any number of things to do. First there is the unloading of truck and trailer. We had a grand total of 4 large trash bags full of mostly winter clothing to be sorted, washed, ironed or simply hung up. Though our son, Mark, did a great job of sorting the mail while we were gone, we still had to go through it all to make sure we hadn't overlooked anything important. We hadn't.

We've put our trailer in storage for at least a month. It's only a mile from our house which means we can 'visit' whenever we want! We actually went back today to remove a few other things we overlooked when it was parked in front of our house overnight on Friday.

As you may recall, our first two days on the road were challenging to say the least. Days three and four were rather mundane. After staying at Texas T in Tennessee, we stayed at Crossroads RV Park in Elizabethtown, KY. Our last nite on the road was southwest of Indy at a place called Lake Haven Retreat. The only real drawback to this place was the distance from some of the sites to the showers. Some of the sites were at least a half mile from the facilities.

Next on my schedule is the grass! Ugh!. I was hoping the recent 'cold snap' would have killed it all, but alas it survived. I know some of you are cursing me for my lack of interest in yard work. Its never been one of my top ten things to do. If I really thought about it, chances are good it wouldn't make my top 20! Today I did manage to revisit our Lawnboy, change the oil, clean the filter and put in a new spark plug. This was an effort to overcome denial of inevitability. Tomorrow I may even buy gas for it!

Right now I'm watching the final round of the Masters. Lefty is winning, and I think he'll do it. His wife and kids are with him this week. She has been undergoing chemo for her breast cancer over the last several months. Her and the kids being at Augusta had to be a real boost for Phil. Since all of you who care will already know the result by the time you get this, I will drop the subject.

I need all the guys from Emerald Beach to support me in my effort to boycott the ladies' attempt to involve us in their morning exercise. I think we need to organize a competing event for every morning. Something like 'coffee at McDonalds' for example. Anything to get us far enough away and unavailable to the "sisters in sweat". After all, if we were involved they would have to change their name. After Linda created tee shirts with the sweat logo, it would be unfair to her as well. All suggestions for an alternative will be given consideration. They simply want to embarrass us, and prove us to be the slobs that we are. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN!!!

I've included a few Florida pix from our winter at Emerald Beach. I will do this on each of my posts in the future.

Phil won the Masters!! Till next time.....

Day 2: Texas T

We arrived at the Texas T RV Park at 3 p.m. yesterday. Day two included a couple 'near death' experiences just to spice things up. No tires exploded, so that was good, but two incidents had us holding our breath while standing on the brakes. There was a modular home (oversize load) to the right of me about 25 feet ahead. Suddenly this house was cutting in front of me into my lane. There wasn't an opening to my left so I hit the brakes. It seems a small trailer lost its load right in front of the house thus causing his sudden appearance in my lane. I came withing 5 feet of having the house in our front seat!

It must have been our day for scares. About an hour after incident #1, the same type of thing occurred. A woman in a jeep was to my right driving on the shoulder at a slow rate of speed. Without any signal, she suddenly veered to her left and into my lane. I laid on the horn and started to brake. Apparently she swerved to avoid a tire that was on the shoulder ahead of her. I have no idea why she didn't just stop and wait for my lane to open up, but she didn't. Luckily for her she quickly swerved to her right once she was past the tire. There wouldn't have been any way for me to stop if she hadn't. Needless to say we were both glad to park for the nite.

I must apologize for bad mouthing the Birmingham South RV Park. After we left there and were on the road for a couple hours, Mary Ellen was looking for her small coin purse. She keeps her "gambling money" in it. We checked all over the truck and in the trailer, but no sign of the coin purse. Mary Ellen called the campground, told them what sight we were on, and asked them if they would check the ground and see if they could find the purse. One half hour later they called and said YES they had found it. Normally, Mary Ellen will stay behind when I pull out from a site, just to make sure something like that doesn't happen. This time we forgot. Anyhow, Mary Ellen asked the lady if there was any cash in it. The woman said there was "a wad of cash". Mary Ellen asked her if she would count it. The woman did, and said there was $192! The owner of the Birmingham South RV Park, Jim called back and asked if it would be alright if he wrote us a check for $192 and mailed that along with the purse. We agreed with this solution. So "hats off" to the honest management & employees of the Birmingham South RV Park. This made me very sorry for my low rating of the campground. Jim will be getting a restaurant 'gift card' from Mary Ellen when we get home.

Today will take us as far as Elizabethtown, KY and the Crossroads RV Park. Today looks like a cloudy day. There are supposed to be thunderstorms and wind. Sounds like a fun drive. Maybe today will be incident free.

Till next time, "A gourmet restaurant in Elkhart is one where you leave the tray on the table when you finish eating."

jim

How About Them Bulldogs!!!

Well it's April 5th, the day for our departure from Emerald Beach. Louise stopped by to say goodbye as well as Linda & Ron. They will be at Emerald Beach until May 1st. All of the staff gave us a hug...Marge & Wayne, Providence and Ron. So off we drove at 10 a.m. for a rather short first day (I like to get into it gradually). We're only going to Hope Hull, AL and the Montgomery South RV Park.

The trip was not without incident. We were about 30 miles from our exit when a car slowed next to us. A woman was motioning and pointing down toward the road (not a good sign). Sure enough, we blew a tire on our trailer. We were only a mile from the Greenville exit. We got off and limped to a nearby Wal Mart. I examined the tire and found it gone! We were riding on the rim. What happened next was fortuitous. There was a tow truck in the lot working on a truck tire that looked similar to ours, in other words shredded. We asked the guy if he knew whether Wal Mart sold trailer tires. He didn't know but said he would put on our spare if we could wait a few minutes. We did and he did. In ten minutes we had a tire. However, we now needed a spare. We got directions to a tire store and after getting lost and cruising around downtown Greenville we finally found it. They had a tire and rim. For a mere $166 we were on our way. We lost only an hour or so and eventually arrived at the campground at 3:30.

Speaking of this campground...someone at Emerald Beach recommended this place. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The pull-thrus are stone and not very level, not even close. They do have a very nice shower. It's co-ed and there is only the one shower! The woman in the office was nice, but knew nothing about much of anything. We asked if they had cable. She said (honestly) "I don't know much about cable!" Turns out they only have satellite which you have to pay for. No cable. She called the guy who owns this cow pasture and he said he wouldn't recommend satellite if we were only going to be here for one nite. We put up the antenna, scanned, and came up with only 6 channels. Now that might sound ok, but the ONLY network you can get is CBS. That was the only 'saving grace'. If we couldn't get CBS I'm sure we would have left. Tonite is the NCAA championship between BUTLER and Duke! Bottom line, if your tempted to get off I65 at exit 158 and go to the Montgomery South RV Park, DON'T!

My Son, Dan and his wife and two girls spent two nites with us on the 2nd and 3rd. We had a very nice visit. All five of us watched Butler win the semifinal game by two points. We were going nuts. It made it even more fun since daughter-in-law, Jill is a Butler grad. What a game. I hope tonite is a little less scary. Go Bulldogs!

After suffering through a rather cold February and a March that wasn't a heck of a lot better, the last 4 days saw temps from 85 to 90. We went from furnace to AC overnite. All in all it was a wonderful winter thanks to all our old and new friends. With all our friends planning to return next year, I'm already starting to lay out next year's
itinerary.

Tomorrow we'll go to Texas T RV Park in TN. This is another recommendation, so I have my fingers crossed.

Till next time, "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom."

jim