Insterstellar

Posted November 30, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: Movies, Reviews
Tags: , ,

Saturday night was date night for interstellarPaula and I. Time to go out to a movie without Mary K. We decided to go to see the movie “Interstellar” written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Ann Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon and Michael Caine. A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in an attempt to find a potentially habitable planet that will sustain humanity. That’s what IMDB says about the story.

The film is 2 hrs and 45 minutes long. When you add in all of the trailers and the adverts, you have 3 butt-numbing hours worth of entertainment. And Matt McConaughey didn’t say “All right, all right, all right” once and he kept his clothes on for the entire movie.

Warning: There are spoilers ahead.

I felt that I needed to suspend my engineering and physics training to believe the story.

So here’s what happens. McConaughey plays a corn farmer who is a retired NASA engineer and pilot on a dust bowl farm growing corn somewhere in the Midwest in the not too distant future. It couldn’t be too distant, because he was driving a recent model pickup truck. Think Kansas, Oklahoma or Nebraska. The world’s crops are all failing and the people’s survival on earth are at risk. So McConaughey manages to discover a super secret NASA installation that is planning on launching a space ship through a worm hole to a distant galaxy. My immediate question to myself, “How does one manage to keep something like that secret?” One would think that one would see big trucks carrying lots of stuff to the staging area. Nope, the spaceship just got built by FM. (FM stands for Fxxking Magic).

So the three astronauts (Matthew McConaughey, Ann Hathaway and David Gyasi) launch in a fancy space ship, off to visit strange worlds far far away. David Gyasi plays the character of Romilly, an black astronaut that you know is going to die before the end of the show. Our other two brave astronauts, you know will survive and return conquering heroes.

So moving right along, Our three heroes arrive at their first port of call which is planet with nothing but water. They find that the earlier visitor from earth had crashed and burned. You’d think that they could have figured this out with a satellite or radar or something, but no, Matt and Anne get in their lander leaving Gyasi behind to tend the store. So they manage to escape before a giant wave was about to send them to their watery graves.

At this point I’m wondering, how do they have enough fuel to do all this? I mean there are no gas stations out there on the Milky Way. The tank must be pointing to “E” about now.

But no, they return to the mother ship to find that Gyasi has aged 16 years while they only aged a couple of hours. Something to do with relativity I guess.

So they head on over to the other planet (named Gargantua). Which is an ice cold planet with nothing but mountains, ice  and rocks. You’d think they could find a planet with a bit more pleasant environment, you know like warm with palm trees? Nope they find an ice encrusted place. You’re not going to grow much corn there. No bars making Margaritas.

So now they find the astronaut from the previous mission (Code name: Lazarus) played by Matt Damon. For once, Damon is playing a bad guy. His character is intent on killing McConaughey. I’m not exactly sure why. But fight they do.

At this point, it begins to get a little weird. McConaughey gets in to  a space battle with Damon. Wait a second, where did they get a second lander to have a space battle? And somehow, McConaughey escapes into another dimension. He then commences to communicate with his teenage daughter by way of morse code. She manages to deduce some new theory from the Morse code. At this point, I am thinking, “When is this going to ever end?”

I begin thinking about Margarita I will be having with dinner at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. So McConaughey is saved and is brought to new huge space station somewhere out by Saturn’s rings. Humanity is saved, everyone is reunited, forever and ever, McConaughey is the hero. Amen.

God it felt good to stand up and stretch. This film will likely be nominated for Academy awards at least for special effects and cinematography. Best Actor? I don’t think so. But the Academy doesn’t usually ask me, I’d give it about 2 stars out of 4.

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Mary and other news…

Posted November 26, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: Aging, Family
Tags: ,

It’s time for an update on Mary. Paula and Mary are off to Rose’s Beauty Salon to get Mary’s hair done before Thanksgiving. So I have a couple of hours of blissful piece and quiet.

Here’s the protocol. I walk Mary down to the elevator and then down to the garage while Paula gets the car and picks her up. Get her into the front seat and buckle her up. Her walking is getting more troublesome. Paula and I call it the “old lady shuffle”. As much as she tries to keep up a normal gait, she tends to shuffle along with her cane. Her neurologist says it is likely due to her hydro-encephalitis (ie. water on her brain). He once told us that he could install a shunt to ease the build up of fluid, but surgery at her age is very risky. So she took a pass. He said that we should expect incontinence to happen. Looks like we will buying stock in Depends.

She has pretty much recovered from the hip surgery back in June. She went through a couple of months of PT. She had another fall in October. Luckily, no damage done. It’s hard to predict when it will happen. She didn’t trip over anything. She just got dizzy and down she went.

We haven’t been doing much travelling lately. We feel comfortable leaving her alone for a couple of hours, but not so much for several days. So that being the case, we didn’t go to any OES receptions this Summer. We did go to Visalia with Mary for the OES Grand Installation in October. Usually the trips are an occasion for Paula and I to relax, but when we bring Mary along we have to stay vigilant. Of course, that means there is more money left in the bank at the end of the month.

We are not quite sure how we will deal with travel next year. We really don’t want to miss MA OES Grand Chapter in May. After the holidays, we will look into respite care to get someone to stay with her while we are gone.

Back in January, we visited her primary bank office and got Mary to add us as signers on her checking and savings account. Since that time, I have been managing her finances, paying bills etc. We have also been visiting other banks to do the same. At some point we will need to revisit her will and make sure everything all of her final plans are in order. My goal is to avoid probate as much as possible.

Mary’s short term memory continues to deteriorate. She usually has to struggle to figure out what day it is. But she seems to remember that Tuesday is the day the Mike and his family come for dinner. She is always happy to Jonathan and Sarah.

The daily grind of doctor visits and PT sessions has eased somewhat. We generally offer to take her to OES meetings. Sometimes she comes, sometimes not. Game time decision. We don’t offer to take her on grocery shopping trips, too much walking for her. Besides, that is one of the times that Paula and I can get away. So much so that the grocery clerk notices when Paula isn’t with me. Of course, the grocery store has a Starbuck’s and they know what I usually order.

Well tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We are planning to have dinner with Theresa’s family in Rancho Palos Verdes. Eric has the largest house and is best able to handle a large crowd. I expect a crowd of 25 or so. There is usually three tables. One for the seniors, kids, and little kids. I will bring my iPad and play Eric’s baby grand.

That’s all for now. Time to start working on my Christmas letter.

Joe

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Election Day

Posted November 4, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: Aging, Family
Tags: , ,

Another day in the life of caring for an ninety year old woman. Best laid plans and all that. Paula and Mary planned to attend a luncheon meeting for Assistance League. Assistance League is a charitable organization of women run by women. Starts at about 10am and runs until about 1:30pm. So I have about 3.5 hours of free time.
 
 So off I go to vote. Polling place pretty much deserted at 10am. I vote and head for Starbucks. I have a dark roast and cranberry scone. Delicious. I have a few minutes of peace and quiet.
 
 Now back to the election. CA sent out flyers that explained in gory detail all of the ballot questions. Arguments for and against. I hung on to them, knowing that Mary would want to study them. She wrote some notes but loses the notes. She can’t remember the details from one day to the next.
 
 Mind you the questions are complicated and would stress out a normal person with reasonable intelligence. So this morning Mary studies the information and writes some notes. So far so good.
 
 So Paula and Mary arrive home at about 1:30pm. Did you vote? I say. Paula yes, Mary no. She wasn’t ready. So I ask her was she planning on voting. Yes she says. I groan. That means that someone (probably me) will have to take her back to the polling place later. And it would have to happen before 5pm.
 
 She eventually gave up and went back to bed for a long afternoon nap.
 
 And by the way, she had another fall on Saturday night. She got dizzy and fell. Luckily no damage done. She couldn’t get up without help. We were planning on taking her to the Demolay installation. So Paula got her undressed and put her to bed to rest.
 
 TTFN…
 
 
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The Trip to Bountiful

Posted October 24, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: Aging, Reviews
Tags: , , ,

Last night was date night here. Paula and I try to occasionally get away from the stress of caring for her mother. Last night we attended the play “The Trip to Bountiful” at the Ahmanson Theater in downtown LA.
 
 The Trip to Bountiful was written by Horton Foote. Last night’s performance starred Cicely Tyson as Mrs. Carrie Watts, Blair Underwood as Ludie Watts, and Vanessa Williams as Jessie Mae Watts.
 
 There is also a movie version of Bountiful that starred Geraldine Page as Carrie Watts made in 1985. In that version, Geraldine Page won an Oscar for Best Actress.
 
 Bountiful is the story of Carrie who is an older women living with her hen-pecked son and controlling daughter-in-law in an apartment in Houston in the 1940’s. Every month coinciding with the arrival of her pension check, Carrie attempts to return to the home of her childhood in the fictional town of Bountiful, TX. Just about every month Jessie Mae manages to stop her from escaping.
 

 Of course, there is the obvious parallel in my living situation. Paula and I are living with her 90 something mother. Mary K has her childhood home in a place named Piedmont, KS. It is a town that has, like Bountiful, seen much better days. Mary has managed to make it back to Piedmont many times over the years. The most recent trip was this past May for her high school reunion. Paula took Mary this time and I begged off.
 
 Sometimes it seems that we are better off leaving the places of our past just in our memories. Going back doesn’t always work like we would like it to.
 
 So on to the review of the play last night. Ms Tyson nailed the performance of Carrie. She managed to get all of the mannerisms of an 80 something old woman and the clothing screamed “old lady dress”. I could close my eyes and see Mary K in my mind’s eye.
 
 Blair Underwood did an excellent job of playing the hen pecked husband and son. He got two ways from mother and wife. Last time I remember seeing Mr Underwood was in the TV production “LA Law” in the 90’s. Good job.
 

 I had a little trouble getting all of the dialogue. This is more a problem with my hearing than the production. No matter how much I tried to adjust my hearing aids, I just couldn’t quite find the sweet spot where every word came in loud and clear.
 
 The Ahmanson theater is a medium to largish theater in Downton LA. It is in the theater complex with the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It has excellent sight lines. We had seats in mezzanine (1st balcony) third row center. Mezzanine seats are easy to get to. We left San Pedro at about 6:15 and we were in our seats by 7:45. It takes a while to deal with traffic, parking, etc.
 
 During the intermission, the bar was charging outrageous rates. Two drinks cost us $26. Ouch. Could have used a tad more legroom. It is always a challenge to get downtown in the evening.
 
 Bountiful is playing at the Ahmanson until Nov 2. So you still have a chance to see it. Certainly worth it. Or failing that go rent the DVD from Netflix.
 
 
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Travels with Mary

Posted October 20, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: California, Family, Mary, Travel
Tags: , ,

On Saturday Paula, Mary and I drove up to Visalia to attend the OES Grand Chapter Installation of our good friend Roger Nieder as Worthy Grand Patron. Visalia is about 200 miles north of San Pedro in California’s central valley. We usually do a rest stop about half way. This time we stopped for lunch in Gorman which is just about at the north end of the Grapevine.
 
 Normally we would have gone for the entire grand chapter session but that would have been too much for Mary to do. (Us too.) We have to be constantly watching her to keep her from falling. She has graduated from the walker to using a cane.
 
 So she moves oh so slowly. We try to have someone on her arm with the cane on the other arm. All it would take would be one bump from someone to knock her over. She has this idea in her head that she eventually will be able to ditch the cane. We tell her your PT person told you that you will always need a cane. She of course doesn’t remember any of this. She also thinks that someday she will be driving again. I don’t think so, Tim. Our constant answer is “We’ll see about that.”
 
 So we were staying in one room at a Holiday Inn (more on the hotel later) in Visalia. We would have loved to have the privacy of one room for us and one room for Mary, but we learned the lesson back in June that she needs to be closely supervised.
 
 It has been incredibly stressful for Paula and I to be constantly on guard with her especially in an unfamiliar environment and in crowds. The risk of a fall is ever present.
 
 So the installation started at about 7:30 PM. We had plenty of time to rest up for the event.


(l-r) Mary, Shawn Donahue (Sr Grand Deacon), and Paula
 
 


Roger Nieder, Worthy Grand Patron
 
 So we had a great time with no visits to any ER’s along the way. We arrived home on Sunday at about 3:00 PM after about a four hour ride.
 
 Now about the hotel. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. Room was comfortable but there were so many little faults that made to stay less than acceptable.
 
 1. They tried to put us in a room that hadn’t been cleaned. That meant that Mary stayed with Paula while I went back to the front desk to get our room changed.
 
 2. Coffee maker didn’t work.
 
 3. WiFi credentials didn’t work. Not that it matters much. Usually my cell phone data is faster than hotel WiFi. Never seen hotel Wifi much faster than 1 Mbps.
 
 4. Desk chair was broken.
 
 On the plus side, they had a decent restaurant with a decent breakfast buffet. We ate there on Sunday morning before we left.
 
 The list goes on and on. I expect hotels (even budget hotels) to take care of the little things. There are plenty of other budget hotels to choose from that do take care of them. We won’t be staying there again.
 
 We are trying to get back to doing “Date Night” again. Next Thursday, we have tickets to see the play “The Trip to Bountiful” with Blair Underwood and Cicely Tyson up in Downtown LA. Just the two of us. Sometimes just going shopping together seems like a date together.
 
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Weekend Update

Posted October 15, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: California
Tags: ,

It’s been a bit crazy around here lately. This past Friday, our friend Andrea came to visit. Andrea is a college friend of Paula who lives up in Sacramento. [Andrea reads my blog, so I must be nice.] Paula and I headed up to LAX to pick her up at the South West terminal at about noon. LAX is a crazy place any time of day or night. Always heavy traffic.

Well Andrea eventually arrived and texted us at the cell phone lot. Seeing as it was noon and we hadn’t had lunch we headed to Hof’s Hut in Torrance. We had a coupon for a free meal that Paula received for her birthday. Then we headed to Trader Joe’s to shop for groceries for the weekend.

On Saturday, we planned to meet Ron & Thelma from San Diego. It’s about a two hour jaunt down to SD. We agreed to meet in the middle at the El Adobe Mexican Restaurant in San Juan Capistrano. SJC is just about half way between San Pedro and San Diego. We started off with margaritas all around.

Interesting factoid about El Adobe. It was President Richard Nixon’s favorite Mexican Restaurant. His residence is not too far away in San Clemente. President Nixon would be known to send a secret service guy to get take out.

We exchanged stories and pictures of our respective grand-children. Then I got a text message from our son Mike. It seems that Mary K had gotten a might bit confused. She woke up from a long nap and thought it was Sunday morning. And seeing as we weren’t there, she called Mike to see if she could get a ride to church. Sigh…

Ron had just gotten a new Honda Pilot. Seats eight. Plenty of room for the family. Mike and Theresa just got a new Honda Odyssey. Same reason. Both cars are nice looking rides. Maybe one of these days we will trade in the 2007 Jeep.

On Sunday, we all went to church, followed by a trip to the Gaffey Street Diner for some quality diner food. Gaffey Street was one of the places reviewed by Guy Fieri’s Food Network show. It’s one of our favorites. They just about know what I will order (Bacon and Eggs, Over Medium, Sour Dough Toast.) If I order something different the waitresses look at me funny.

Finally on Monday, we took Andrea back to LAX for her flight to Sacramento. We love to visit but love to see her leave so that I get my office space back. Our third bedroom is combination guest room and office. We told Andrea that we would prefer that she fly to Long Beach Airport. Much less stress than LAX. No lines, no traffic.

On Saturday, we will be making a quick trip to Visalia for the OES Grand Chapter Installation. Drive up on Saturday, back on Sunday.

TTFN

Joe

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Shrine picnic

Posted September 29, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: California, Family, Freemasonry, San Pedro
Tags: , ,

Yesterday we attended the annual picnic of the Beach Cities Shrine Club at LA Harbor Lodge. This is an annual event where the Al Malaikah Potentate visits. Al Malaikah is the Los Angeles affiliate of the Shriners. Shriners run children’s hospitals across the country for either burn cases or orthopedic injuries or diseases in children.
 
 So our son Neil who is down from Salt Lake City visiting for the week, joined us at the picnic. Here is the view from LA Harbor Lodge. It was a beautiful clear day in San Pedro. The view is of LA Harbor. One can almost make out the mountains across the bay. Temperature was in the mid-seventies.

 So we had a conflict. Our church was having their annual picnic. But we decided to do the Shrine event. The shrine was doing steaks, corn on the cob and beer. Also, the venue was a lot easier for Mary. We often choose events on how fall-safe the venue is.
 
 Mary had a great time. The bar was stocked with her favorite white zinfandel. She had two glasses, which for her was one glass too many. Luckily she wasn’t driving. We made sure one of us was on each side of her.
 
 Mary got to see a lot of old friends that she doesn’t often get to see. There was a drawing for many prizes to raise money for the hospital.
 
 So Paula wins a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. Not too shabby. I would drink it, but Paula doesn’t care for Scotch. So one of the brothers who won a bottle of rum asked if we would care to swap the scotch for the rum. Seeing as we both don’t care for rum that much, we said no. But, we said, if you swap the rum with the person who won the bottle of Tanqueray Gin, we would swap the scotch for the gin. So the deal got done. Everybody was happy.
 
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Endeavour

Posted September 27, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: California, Los Angeles, Technology
Tags: , ,

Our son (Neil) is in town to visit for a few days. We were looking for things to do besides eat and drink. We decided to go visit the space shuttle Endeavour up at the California Science Center in downtown LA.
 
 The Endeavour was moved to the California Science Center in October 2012. It was quite an event watching the ship move through the streets of LA from LAX to Science Center in downton LA. Here is the Wikipedia Link. Here is a picture of Endeavour on the launch pad.
 

 Currently the Endeavour is on display in a hangar-sized building at the Science Center. There are plans in place to move it outside and display in launch configuration with booster rockets and fuel tank.
 
 Here are some of the pictures that I took.
 


I was impressed on how worn the shuttle looked. High mileage indeed.
 


On the wall in the hangar are posted brief descriptions of all space shuttle missions.
 


The mounting of the space shuttle is on four massive pylons with earthquake resistant disks.
 


The engines have been removed from Endeavour and replaced with nacelles. This is a model of one of the engines.
 
 


Here’s a picture of the space shuttle toilet. There was a video explaining how it was used.
 


Mock up of NASA command center.
 


Where the rubber hits the road (or runway).
 

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Location:Los Angeles, CA

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Lomita Railroad Museum

Posted September 27, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: California
Tags: , ,

We decided to go visit the Lomita Railroad Museum in beautiful downtown Lomita. The museum is a small affair with one steam locomotive, a couple of cabooses, and tons of railroad memorabilia. Price is $4 for an adult, $2 for children. One can do the museum in less than an hour. It is handicap friendly with the exception of the locomotive. It’s a challenge to get up in the cab. Here’s the link to their website.

You can tour by yourself or ask for a guided tour.

Here are my pictures:


Not exactly a user friendly interface.


Railroads were genesis for a unified, consistent time keeping. Lots of clocks.


Lights, signals, bells, whistles. As the saying goes, “All the bells and whistles”. A pity one couldn’t try out the bells and whistles. I think the neighbors would have something to say about that.


Inside the caboose. Stove, bunks, toilet, water supply. All the creature comforts a man could want.


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News from out West

Posted September 13, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: Family, Mary
Tags: , ,

Time for an update. It has been 3.5 months since Mary’s accident up in Salt Lake City. She is doing amazingly well. She is doing physical therapy twice a week. The therapist has been working on balance issues. She has started transitioning from the walker to a cane (the kind with four prongs at the base for additional stability). She uses the cane only at home.
 
 So physically she is doing fine. Mental issues are a different story. Short term memory is a problem. She will ask me in the morning what day it is. I tell her today is Saturday. Oh she says. Are we going to PT today? No that was yesterday.
 
 We are working hard on getting her to eat a healthy diet. If we weren’t her that would certainly not be happening. Sometimes though it is a struggle to figure out what she likes and doesn’t like.
 
 So she went with us last night to Eastern Star meeting at Lomita. I was filling in playing the piano for the chapter. Everyone was happy to see her and she them. It is often a struggle to get her out, but it is worth it when we do. It’s the initial struggle to get her started that is the problem. Once we get her moving she is fine. Overall, she is doing pretty good for 90.
 
 I seem to be seeing pictures of our friends back east wearing coats and jackets. So I guess it’s starting to get cold. It’s been in the 80’s all last week here in San Pedro. It’s been up in 100’s out in the desert. I still have a coat in the closet. I don’t expect to use it this winter either. It’s been almost three years since the last time I put the Jeep in 4-wheel drive. I seem to remember seeing an ice scraper in the back of the Jeep. Haven’t used it either.
 
 We are planning on driving up to Visalia for our friend Roger’s installation as Worthy Grand Patron for the Grand Chapter of California on October 18th. We asked Mary if she would like to go. She said yes, so we will drive up on Saturday (in October) and return the following day. Installation is on a Saturday evening.
 
 Our daughter in law in do to give birth to our second grand-baby this week. The baby is expected to be a girl and her name will be Sarah. We are very excited. We love being grand-parents. I will be posting pictures as soon as they are available.
 
 Apple announced new iPhones and the Apple Watch on Sept 9th. I have pre-ordered an iPhone Six Plus with 128Gb. I ordered the first day orders were allowed. I wasn’t nearly fast enough. Expected delivery is not until November. Sigh. I heard that orders for initial delivery sold out in minutes. Luckily, I don’t have to pay for it until it ships. Paula gets the iPhone 5S and I’ll try and find a home for the iPhone 4S that she is using now. I will post pictures and a review once I get the new phone.
 
 So you are probably wondering, Joe what about the Apple Watch? I am not getting an Apple Watch. I haven’t worn a watch in years. With an iPhone in my pocket, why do I need an iWatch? I would be wearing a watch that screams out “STEAL ME!!!”. Not going to happen.
 
 Our son Neil will be coming down from SLC to visit for week later this month. We are looking forward to his visit.
 
 That’s all the news that I can think of from Pedro. Stay warm (or cool) as the case may be.
 
 TTFN
 
 Joe
 
 
 
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