Here Comes the Heat

The temperature has been steadily rising over the past week.  For both Thursday and Friday it was in the upper 80s, and today, for the first time this year, it exceeded 90 degrees.  Today was also the first time this year when it got hot enough indoors for the air conditioning to run on the main floor.  Fortunately it is still 73 degrees in the basement as I write this, so the rest of the family understands if I choose to spend most of my free time down here.

And that’s not all; the weatherman is forecasting a high of 100 degrees for tomorrow!  In the six years since we moved to Kentucky, this is the first time I can remember it getting in the 90s before June.  This is more like the Memorial Day weekends we had in Florida:  the full heat of summer, but no rain to cool things off.

One of the things I have been doing is experimenting with the so-called “Internet Cloud.”  Last year I bought a device called Pogoplug, which you hook up to an external hard drive and that hard drive joins the cloud.  Unlike paid services from companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc., you only have to pay once to gain access (when you buy the Pogoplug), and your only limit on space comes from the size of the hard drive you use.  My first experiments with the Pogoplug did not go as well as I would have liked, and then my job assignment in Connecticut came up, so I had to shelve the project until I returned to Kentucky.  Two weeks ago, in one of the Wal-Marts of Lexington, I found an unbelievably good deal on an 3 terabyte external hard drive, so I bought it and tried hooking the Pogoplug up to it.  This time the experimentation went much better; last Sunday I declared the project a complete success.  Now I have a good-sized chunk of the cloud, available in my office for myself, family and friends.

Aside from that, and getting the brakes on Leive’s car fixed last Thursday, my main activity has been searching for a new source of income, either through a job or new Members/Associates in my LegalShield business.  With the state of the economy in Kentucky, I have more hope for the business, if I am going to stay here.

Illaria finished her nursing class last Thursday.  For three weeks, from Monday to Thursday, I drove her to class in the morning.  However, she hasn’t made up mind what she will do next, either with work or in finding a place of her own.  Leive hopes she will move out soon, because my brother Chris will be coming up to visit in a week.  Stay tuned . . .

Fury Spreads: Catholic Leaders Join MRC Outrage Over Network Silence on Catholics vs. Obama Lawsuit | Media Research Center

One thing I have learned about propaganda is that what a propagandist DOESN’T say can have as much effect as what he DOES say.  This is the biggest religious lawsuit in American history, sure to be called a major scandal if it happened under any other president, and how much attention has this issue gotten on the major networks?  A whopping 19 seconds.  If you ask me, this is more important than what happened on “American Idol” yesterday.

Fury Spreads: Catholic Leaders Join MRC Outrage Over Network Silence on Catholics vs. Obama Lawsuit | Media Research Center.

Meanwhile here in Kentucky, we had our primary election yesterday.  I barely noticed it; there are only two presidential candidates left (Obama and Romney), I know next to nothing about the other races, and because I am not registered as either a Democrat or Republican, I cannot vote in it anyway.  Remember a week or two ago, when 41% of the Democrats in West Virginia voted for a guy in a Texas prison named Keith Judd, instead of Obama?  Well, our voters are just as mad at the president, because he doesn’t care about our part of the country.  Yesterday 42% of Kentucky Democrats cast their ballots for uncommitted delegates, meaning their choice was “anyone but Obama!”

Flying History and Pink Water

I got to see a bit of history in the air yesterday; what a treat!  Over the weekend a vintage B-29 bomber, one of the most important World War II airplanes, was visiting Lexington.  According to the radio, 3,960 B-29s were built for World War II and Korea, but this one, named Fifi, is the last one that can fly.  I ran to the nearest Kroger for a shopping errand yesterday afternoon, and when I got to Kroger, at 4:50 PM, I saw the last flying B-29 soar right over my neighborhood.  This picture gives you an idea of what I saw:

This morning I encountered another surprise.  When I take Illaria to her nursing class, four mornings every week, I cut through downtown Lexington to get there.  Today around the convention center and Rupp Arena, all the fountains were spewing bright pink water!  I didn’t know what was going on until I came home and checked online.  it turns out a film festival started at the convention center last Friday, and they were advertising the first movie, “Pretty In Pink.”  I also learned that it took until Friday afternoon to get the color right; when they first put dye in the fountains last Wednesday, the water came out red!  The local newspaper’s website joked that whoever saw the red fountains would have thought the University of Louisville, the arch-rival to our University of Kentucky, had come in and taken over our home court.  Because the team color for UL is red, and the colors of UK are blue and white, it is always a colorful match-up when the two teams meet.

What We’ve Been Up To

It has been nearly two weeks since I wrote about my family’s activities, so here’s a catch-up on what Leive, Brin-Brin, Illaria and myself have been doing.

First of all, we went through a really soggy weekend.  It rained almost constantly from late on Saturday to Monday morning.  For the month of April, Lexington’s rainfall was an inch below normal; now we’re an inch above normal for the first half of May.  Evidently nature has made up for last month’s shortfall.

Illaria, the Egyptian woman staying with us, started a nursing class on Monday, 5/7.  I’ve been taking her to class each morning, and one of my pastor’s daughters has been bringing her home.  Getting a textbook was a challenge, but she did it, and also passed the exams given so far.  I expect the class will be done at the end of this week, then she will probably look for a job and an apartment.

Brin-Brin seems to have learned how to tell his name from that of others.  There have been times in the past when Leive called for me, shouting “Honey!”, and then Brin-Brin called out with that clucking sound he makes most of the time.  I don’t know if he was trying to help his owner, or if that silly bird was just parroting Leive (parrots are known to do that, after all).  Well, yesterday Leive was checking to see if Illaria came home without telling us.  She shouted “Illaria!” and Brin-Brin responded as before.  Then she said “Honey!” and Brin-Brin called out again, too.  But when she said “Brin-Brin!”, he kept silent.  Here is another time when I wonder what really goes on in that little bird-brain of his.

For Leive, Saturday was the big day.  That is when my church held the annual international banquet, a tradition Leive helped start (see my message from May 6, 2009, for pictures from the first international banquet).  She cooked up two of her most popular Philippine dishes, lumpias (egg rolls) and pancit (noodles).  Of course the lumpias went right away, like they always do, but she did bring back some pancit for me to have later.  The church also had a missionary to the Philippines speak; he’ll be going to Baguio City next month.  Unfortunately I could not attend this time, because somebody from the family had to be at the LegalShield functions described below.

Speaking of LegalShield, yesterday I finally updated the graphics and links on both this blog and The Xenophile Historian, so that they say “LegalShield” instead of “Pre-Paid Legal.”  I can’t believe I waited eight months to do that.

My main activity has been pounding the pavement, looking for a job and prospecting for my LegalShield business.  That’s the main reason why I haven’t posted much here for the month so far.  Along that line, did you notice in the commercials I posted in my May 4 message, that the LegalShield attorney wears an orange tie?  That seems to be becoming our new uniform in the business; when James Kelly, the top LegalShield Associate of Kentucky, came to Lexington two weeks ago, he was wearing an orange tie, too.  Therefore I went looking for an orange tie of my own.  Kohl’s had a few, but they wanted $20-$22 for them, so I figured I could do better elsewhere.  Sure enough, on Friday I found some in the nearest Meijer store to my house, and they had been marked down from $13 to $10.  Of course I bought one and wore it to the next day’s training seminar.

The seminar was held in Louisville, and featured Jermaine Johnson, a youth pastor from Los Angeles who is making $400,000 a year in this business.  Watch this video for a sample of what he had to share with us:

 

The previous Monday, Mr. Johnson decided to visit Lexington as well as Louisville, so I got to hear him twice on the same day.  The fun part was that Mr. Kelly gave me a special assignment.  When he saw my orange tie in Louisville, he asked me to go back to Meijer and buy the rest of the orange ties; I don’t know if they were for him, or for other members of his team.  Thus, between the two sessions, I was driving to both of the Meijer stores in Lexington, looking for orange ties.  The store near my home had four more ties, while the other store didn’t have any at all – mission accomplished.  A Meijer employee simply said that orange ties are hard to find in Kentucky.  I bet they are easier to get in Tennessee; you know the team color of the University of Tennessee, right?  Don’t worry, Mr. Kelly reimbursed me for the ties.

The Run for the Roses

Yes, it’s time for the 138th annual Kentucky Derby.  The first Saturday in May is Derby time every year.  In a normal year this is the day when Kentucky gets the most attention, but this year we’re enjoying more than one red-letter day; we had two around the beginning of April, for the Final Four basketball games involving the University of Kentucky.

Recently a book came out that the local radio stations are talking about:  “The Kentucky Derby: How the Run for the Roses Became America’s Premier Sporting Event.”  it covers everything you ever wanted to know about the Derby (aren’t you sorry you asked?).  Click on the above picture to check it out.

For those who aren’t interested in horses, there are other things to celebrate.  Today is also Cinco de Mayo, for instance.  So have a great weekend, whatever the occasion!

In the Summertime Mode

Yesterday the temperature got up very close to 90 degrees.  For Kentucky that’s unusual; normally May temperatures are just right, and the hot stuff does not come until the second half of June.  This is the May weather I expected when I lived in Florida!  Well, I had a feeling this would be a hot year, after the mild winter in both Kentucky and Connecticut.  Maybe a dry year as well; we haven’t gotten much rain lately.

Yesterday I ran a few errands and Illaria, the Egyptian lady staying with us, came with me.  She and I weren’t bothered by the heat, because we have both experienced hot weather elsewhere, but several of the people we met complained about it.  And so did Leive when we got back.

Speaking of Leive, she had to make two visits to the dentist this week.  She has been bothered by two loose molars for more than a year, but put off doing something about it until I got back in town.  On Monday we visited the dentist our pastor uses, and he did x-rays to assess the situation.  Then on Tuesday we went to a specialist to pull the offending teeth.  Since then she has been healing up at home.  Hopefully she will feel well enough today for us to take my father out to lunch.

Getting Adjusted to Life in the Bluegrass

Last time I wrote about my trip home from Connecticut to Kentucky; would you believe that the temperature back in CT has been in the 30s every morning since I left?  Now it is time to catch the readers up on what I have been doing since my return.

The T-shirt:  First, you will remember I missed the fun, when March Madness became April Madness at the beginning of this month.  Now I finally have the University of Kentucky champion T-shirt I wanted (see my message from April 4).  I was so busy with taxes and preparing to come home that I had forgotten about it.  Then on Friday afternoon I visited the local Meijer store to get a few things, and found the shirts near the entrance to the store, discounted from $15 to $10.50.  You’d think they would sell the shirts until next basketball season, at least, but it looks like they are now getting rid of the last of them.  I’ll have to go back and get one in Leive’s size, and maybe I’ll drive to the UK campus this week to see if they are still “celebr8ting.”

The Buick:  I told you I have had car trouble since Thursday, so on Saturday morning I took the Buick to our mechanic friend in the family.  The spark plugs were fouled, and according to my records they were installed in 2003, so he replaced them.  However, that only helped a little.  More disturbing was the discovery that air compression in the front central cylinder is low.  That could be from a bad valve, a bad fuel injector, or a bad piston ring.  Either way, it means the engine is wearing out, no surprise since I have put nearly 100,000 miles on it in the past ten years.  For the short run, I should not take the car out of town again, and in the long run, it will be more cost effective to replace the car this year, than to keep spending money on repairs for it.  Therefore I hope that my next source of income will be much closer to home than Connecticut.

My Father:  On Friday and Saturday Leive and I went to visit my Dad in the retirement home where we placed him, less than two miles from our house.  This is the first time I have seen him since January 2011.  On each visit we spent more than an hour, and from what I can see, he is well cared for.  Our current plan is to take him out for lunch at Fazoli’s on Tuesday.  We’ll use the Buick, which should be fit for the trip, despite its current condition.  Leive hasn’t taken him anywhere since he arrived, because the Nissan rides too low for him to get in and out without a great deal of help.

A Guest in the House:  At the end of March Leive took in an Egyptian woman in her thirties named Illaria (I hope I spelled that right).  She is a Coptic Christian, and was referred to us by our pastor, who knew she was looking for a place to stay and recommended us.  Previously Leive knew nothing about any of the Orthodox churches, so this is a learning experience for her.  I only got to meet Illaria after coming home, and as you might expect, we compared our knowledge of Egyptian history.  Like this bit about King Pepi II, from the British comedy “Horrible Histories”:

So far the only problem we have had with her is the time she burned incense in the kitchen; that made Leive sick, and I warned that stuff like that can be poisonous for parrots, so she stopped.  And along that line, Brin-Brin puts up a howl when Illaria plays Arabic music, but listens quietly when Leive plays Hebrew music.  More evidence that Brin-Brin is a Jewish parrot (see my message from May 4, 2011)!

Where Prices Are Low and Temperatures Are High

Yes, I’m talking about the South, now that I have returned there.  A description of Connecticut, where I spent most of the past eleven months, would be the opposite of the above title.

Anyway, in yesterday’s message I told you about the first half of my trip home, so I’ll conclude it here.  After going to a nice diner and a Sheetz gas station, to fill up myself and the car, I left Hancock, MD at 10:25 AM.  This time I got to see the region I missed when I drove to Connecticut last June, due to my GPS giving me bad directions around Morgantown, WV.  I had never before seen Maryland west of Hagerstown, and it’s full of mountains instead of farms, so it doesn’t look like the nearest part of Pennsylvania at all.  It also has the prettiest scenery I have seen on these trips between Kentucky and Connecticut, and the locals are proud of it.  It shows in the other names they give Interstate 68, the “Scenic Byway” and the “National Freeway.”  And it shows in how Allegany and Garrett Counties have welcome signs made of stone, that are fancier than the welcome signs states put on their borders.

At 11:50 I crossed into West Virginia, and once I reached Morgantown, the journey became a reverse version of the trip I took last June 4-5.  I stopped for gas at Clarksburg, and there I got the only scare of the trip.  As I left the interstate, the engine of the car heated up and the “Service Engine Soon” light came on.  Unfortunately I could not get the hood open, so whatever was causing the engine’s behavior would have to wait until I got home, which at that point was 290 miles away.  The good news is that the engine did not get hot enough to boil over, and the temperature went down after I hit the road again.

At 2 PM I stopped for lunch at a Subway near Sutton, WV, the small town where I spent the night when I came the other way.  Then at 5 PM I reached Kentucky.  I stopped once more for gas at the first gas station I passed in Kentucky, figuring that gas would be cheaper near the Ashland oil refinery.  When I stepped out on Kentucky tarmac to use the gas pump, it felt like my internal batteries were getting recharged, now that I was back in my home state.  Whew, life in the North must have taken more out of me than I thought.

To finish the travelogue, I made it home just before 7 PM.  The car engine got hot again when I was stuck in the traffic on Man o’War Blvd (see my message from November 19, 2007, for more about that street), and then the service engine light went off.  The engine ran unevenly today when I went out to run some errands, so I plan to take it to the family mechanic tomorrow.  Even so, it’s good to be back!

GR8NESS

How about them ‘Cats!  They won Monday night’s game against Kansas, 67-59, to become this year’s college basketball champions.  Sorry I did not post this sooner; I was working on my tax return yesterday.

As with Saturday’s game, I went to the chat room at Kentucky.com to find out about the game in real time.  Then in the team spirit, I wore my UK jacket to work again, though with morning temperatures as low as 26 degrees, I normally would have put on something heavier.  Already the Meijer chain of supermarkets is advertising T-shirts that announce we’re the 2012 champs; I’ll have to ask Leive to pick up one for me, if I’m not back in Kentucky soon.

Speaking of Leive, she must be the last person in town to find out about the victory; she didn’t know about it when I called her at 10 PM last night.  All she said when I told her was that the ladies’ group from our church, that meets in our house on Tuesday night, did not discuss basketball.  Well, you can bet your last dollar that the men’s group would have mentioned it.

Our neighborhood must have been quiet, then, because I hear it was crazy around the UK campus.  One man was shot in the foot, and it had to be amputated.  Also, some couches were set on fire.  The cops were out in force, though, so no cars were overturned, like what happened on Saturday night.

The term Gr8ness (greatness) has been coined to describe this win, because it is the eighth win in the college’s history, and the first since 1998.  And now we can stop saying that John Calipari is the best coach who hasn’t won a championship yet.  Way to go, UK!

Go ‘Cats, For the NCAA Title!

For those who didn’t get it, yesterday’s message was an April Fool’s Day joke.  In fact, the championship game, between the University of Kentucky and the University of Kansas, is in progress as I write this.  Unfortunately I don’t know where to go to watch it, so I’ll probably find out who won when I wake up tomorrow.  It also would be fun if I was home, so as to be closer to the rest of the fans.  At least I can show the team spirit by wearing my UK jacket to work, as I did today.