Dandy Don Died Today

It came out of the blue on the Evening News - Dandy Don Died Today! I should research this more carefully, but just excuse me and let my memories take over.

Monday Night Football exploded into our lives as the war in South East Asia was grinding to an ignominious halt. Those of us who participated in the latter got no parades, but parades come and they go and they are over. Our welcome home was MNF with Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford, and Dandy Don Meredith, forever after known as "Jeff and Hazel's Baby Boy". He was the perfect foil to Cosell's dry wit.

I remember the "Ice Bowl" in Green Bay in 1967. That was the beginning of "the Frozen Tundra". Meredith was the Cowboy quarterback in that most exciting game. I forever after was a Cowboy fan as a result of that game (and possibly because a classmate of mine at the Air Force Academy played defensive end on the '68 thru '81 Cowboy teams).

Anyway, I'm rambling about great memories and good people. After all, it's Monday night, and guess what's on TV.

Turn out the lights, Don, and thanks for the memories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Meredith

Your friend,

Sundog

Changing Technologies as a Boomer Grows Up

I don't know how to be older. I've only ever been younger.

When I was growing up, television sets had one big dial, which you turned through the numbers 2 to 13 to find one of three networks -- ABC, NBC, or CBS (for simplicity, I'm talking only about VHF). As I got to early adulthood, a wire into the house was installed, and that "cable" filled up those 2-13 channels with an amazing array of programming, most of it local. Later, a box was added, and the box gave us more channels than we ever thought possible, opening up a world of networks.

My first computer was a TI 99/4A, and I used it to learn how to program using Basic (a computer language). Hard drives were unheard of then -- programs came on a cartridge and saving data was done on a simple audio cassette recorder. The video was displayed on a TV (the one already in your living room!), and I can still remember the whiny wheep-wheep sound the recorder made as the data was saved or loaded. Pong was amazingly high tech.

Next, an Apple IIE, and an Apple IIGS came into my life along with text adventures, floppy disks, and mono color monitors (your choice, amber or green text). Then came a series of PCs, each increasing in computing power and memory. Color TV was the newest and greatest gadget, although the reds looked eerily other-worldly and seemed to shine and fluoresce.

I was a full-fledged adult when some odd geeky whisperings could be heard about a thing called the "internet." I originally connected when Arpanet was the mover and shaker, finding servers in far off places with interesting articles and documents just waiting to be downloaded. There were no pictures, and no search engines. Things were found by stumbling upon lists of resources other people had found. Mysteriously named protocols like Archie, Veronica, FTP, WAIS, Telnet, and Gopher helped to navigate. Eventually Yahoo came to the information-discovery rescue by creating a way to really plumb the depths of the internet.

I was mid-career when the World Wide Web hit -- at first text-based experience, but graphics could be viewed if a separate application was installed. I was working in Information Technology (IT) -- as a Local Area Network (LAN) manager and a Systems Operator (SysOp), which led eventually to work as a web programmer/database administrator (DBA). At one point, I even knew how to rewrite an .ini file to optimize memory and why a DOS machine beeped at you as the operating system loaded!

Fast forward three short years ago when I left those hi-tech jobs for the fun and excitement of the gypsy life of a full-time RVer. It has not disappointed. But in that short time, it feels like the rush of technology is already zipping past at sonic speeds. I have a phone; it does not have "apps." I have a TV; it does not have Google, it does not connect to the internet, and it does not display 3D. I have an e-reader; it does not have color displays or play games, and it takes 60 seconds instead of 5 to download a book. I do not know what the difference between 3G and 4G really is. The electronics of my world are not synched with each other in any meaningful way.

The distance between being on the cutting edge and feeling vaguely disassociated happened in only three years. 36 months. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1100 sunrises and sunsets.

Being older used to mean being out of touch with technology and not understanding how to interface with objects that only understand interfaces. My father, born in 1910, could not figure out how to make "the HBO" appear on his television. It required turning the TV dial to 3, and then turning a knob on the cable box from pointing right (for channels 2-13) to pointing left -- but those two steps left him confused and frustrated, and undoubtedly feeling old and left behind.

In the late 1980s, I heard that, by the end of the century, people who did not understand how to use a computer would be the "new illiterate." And I think that prophesy came true. How many people today do not have email? How many businesses can afford not to have a website? John and I tend to avoid campgrounds without a website, preferring to check each one online before we pull in. And I keep in touch on a daily basis with many old and new friends on social networks like Facebook, but I almost never contact those who are not connected.

So where is this leading? Today John (and I) unexpectedly moved a little further into the 21st century through the acquisition of a new phone. It started innocently enough: the battery on John's phone died. So we jumped in the car and trekked to the Verizon store to get a new one. They didn't carry the right battery (for one of their phones? Come, on, Verizon!), but we saw a Best Buy next door and decided to see if they could help us.

On the way over, I remarked that it seemed like it had been 2 years since John got his phone, so maybe he was due a new one? An hour or so later, and a Best Buy gift certificate cashed, John walked out with a new Android phone, the first smart phone for either of us.

We have now entered the world of "there's an app for that," a world where we can get our mail during lunch at Paneros, or play computer games while waiting for the dentist to call our name. We can now Google as we travel, and find the nearest Trader Joe's when we are in a strange city and have an emergency need for perfectly seasoned lamb chops.

We may not be young, but we are not ready to be old either. As we replace our technology gadgets and gizmos, we will have fun learning what they do and how to use them. My phone is due to be replaced this May. Will it be a smart phone?

You bet. There are still a lot of Freecell games I haven't won -- and the older I get, the more time I seem to spend in dentist's offices. I guess there's a kind of "technology karma" to that.


John receiving his first smart phone call (from me!)

A-one An-A-Two... Wunnerful, wunnerful!

There is a small golf course and resort in Southern California that was developed by the King of the Bubbly himself, Lawrence Welk. It's called, not surprisingly, Welk Resort and Champagne Village, although its original name was the simpler Lawrence Welk Village. I can't speak to the quality of the golf courses, although I'm sure they are first class, but I can tell you about the museum. Yes, there is a museum dedicated to Lawrence Welk, nestled snuggly in a corner of the lobby of the theater, the theater located just to the side of the musical note fountain, it in turn overseen by a statue of a batonned Mr. Champagne himself.

The museum is free, and the day we stopped by we were the only visitors, although the reservationist was in the same room and she was on the phone selling tickets without a break. The lobby is dedicated to Lawrence Welk and his early life: how he was born in a small, German settlement in South Dakota where his father got him his first musical instrument -- a $400 accordion. He promised his father he would pay for it by working on the family farm until he turned 21, which he did.



He learned to play it on his own, and fulfilled his repayment promise, but stayed not a day more -- on his 21st birthday he left the farm to play in Big Band orchestras, eventually forming his own band. The "Champagne Music" tagline was born during a Pennsylvania tour when a patron said his band sounded "light and bubbly like Champagne."



The museum's centerpiece is this huge crystal champagne glass, said to be "the world's largest." It may at times be bubbly and lit, but it wasn't the day we were there. It quite charmingly sits in front of the theater's refreshment stand.

But the best part of the museum has to be the life-size cut-out of Mr Wunnerful himself, with a vintage TV camera focused on him and a live feed from the camera displayed on a ceiling-mounted TV. How could we not take advantage of THAT photo op?




Lawrence Welk died in 1992 at age 89. The Lawrence Welk Show aired for an amazing 27 years from 1955 to 1982, and can still occasionally be seen on television today.

Thanksgiving At Mitry Lake

Thanksgiving Day Feast at Mitry Lake, just north of Yuma can be summed up as a boondocking adventure with failing batteries, chilly nights, great food, and good friends!

We got here just before total darkness on Tuesday, so we didn't get a chance to look around until Wednesday morning. Coming in as darkness fell, we only knew that the road out of Yuma had become a dirt road, and then got even more narrow, rutted, and rustic, until it emerged through the trees onto a flat gravel area overlooking Lake Mitry -- our new home for a few days.

In the morning we looked around a bit more. The lake could be seen in the distance from our haphazard parking in the dark, but we'd need to move the rig because we'd never get level there. A fire ring had been constructed, but we only had a couple bundles of wood which wouldn't last long. This may be Arizona, but temperatures were set to drop into the 30s. A good fire seemed a must. So we moved the rig a short distance away, and then John tackled the wood problem.

Not so tough a solution -- he ordered a cord of wood to be delivered. He met the truck and guided them into the campsite. The driver was, to say the least, a bit surprised to come through the rutted roads and find a slew of RVs parked everywhere he looked!



Thursday morning: We got up in time to watch Santa arrive on the Macy's parade. Football followed as John made a Yam Casserole for Thanksgiving dinner. It was excellent.



Everyone brought their dishes out at 2 P.M. for a fantastic feast. To paraphrase Nancy E., you get a lot of RVers together who basically live in 400 sq. foot homes, and yet they find enough tables and chairs to serve a dinner for 38 people!



The firepit turned out to be a great idea -- temperatures did get very chilly, but the fire was warm and kept us all outside and socializing long after the cold would have driven us in. We discovered that our coach batteries are not holding a charge as they should, so we have no heat during at night when we can't run the generator. Thursday, the temperature fell to 48 degrees inside! Two quilts on the bed and some cuddling for warmth kept us from being miserable, but getting up for night bathroom breaks was not much fun!



And what would a Boomer get-together be without a group photo? This was taken by Becky Hazen, who kindly emailed it to us all. Thanks, Becky!



More photos of the event can be seem on my Picassa album clicking on the following:

Lake Mitry Boomer's Thanksgiving

Hope you all had a Happy Turkey Day !