calherewecome

Snacks for Jonathan

Posted January 26, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: Family, Food, Kids
Tags: kids

So I was sitting next to my grandson Jonathan this morning after church. We were having a lunch for a family that is moving to Colorado. By the way, Jonathan is two. Jonathan usually can depend on Grandpa giving some good snacks to eat. First, I gave him some potato chips. So far so good. Then, I offered some Cheetos. Big problem. He pushed them away. Maybe they looked too much like carrots or something. Next time I’ll go back to the old standby, Goldfish. Anyways, eventually we got to dessert. Chocolate cake, now you’re talking. By the way, Mary K went to church today. Pastor Jacques gave her a shout-out. Mary K was beaming from ear to ear.

TTFN,

Joe

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Happy Birthday

Posted January 25, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: California, Family, San Pedro
Tags: Family, Mary

Friday was Mary’s 90th birthday. She started the day with visits from her Occupational and Physical Therapists (OT and PT). The OT worked with her on getting her shirt on over the injured shoulder and sitting and standing without using her cane. The PT worked with her on her exercises. Mary is seeing improvement in her ability to move her fingers.

After the OT and PT left, we had lunch with our friend Heather from church. She brought her a small arrangement of white roses.

After lunch, we all took a short nap. Then at 5 PM, Pastor Rich Freeman stopped by for a short visit. He brought some group pictures from a couple of their trips together to Ireland and Turkey/Greece. She insisted on getting dressed up for Pastor Rich’s visit. The visit with Pastor Rich just made her day. Mary was just beaming with joy. Note, the UC Davis sweat shirt on Pastor Rich.

Mary and Pastor Rich

Then at 6PM Mike and family arrived for dinner of Chili and fresh bread. I got out a fresh bowl of Goldfish for Jonathan. As soon as he saw the Goldfish, he went and pushed his highchair over to the table. His way of saying that he was hungry and I really like Goldfish.

One of our neighbors stopped by to visit. Susan has two Chihuahuas. The two dogs were quite shy. Jonathan didn’t quite know what to do with the chihuahuas. I doubt that he has ever seen dogs quite that small.

Mike and Theresa brought an Oreo ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins. Another food that Jonathan likes. Mary had room for cake too.

Everyone loves an ice cream cake

So eventually Mike, Theresa and Jonathan left. We sat down to watch the evening news. Then off to bed. We expect Saturday to be a much quieter day.

TTFN,

Joe

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Update on Mary

Posted January 19, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: Family, San Pedro
Tags: Family, Mary

Time for an update on Mary. It’s been a crazy week. I have sent a few folks email updates but I thought I could do a more complete story by writing it once here for everyone to read.

Mary had her shoulder surgery this past Monday. The surgery is called “Reverse Shoulder Replacement“. See the link for more than you ever wanted to know. Apparently there was enough damage to the head of the humerus that it warranted doing the shoulder replacement. The doctor said that if no surgery done, then it would heal but it probably wouldn’t be very useful. Here’s a typical X-ray of a reverse shoulder replacement.

Mary went through the surgery with flying colors. Paula had taken her to the hospital at zero dark thirty. I remained at our condo for our housekeeper to do her work. (She comes every other Monday, and this past monday was her day).

So once Alicia left, I was going to the hospital to visit. Not so fast bucko, dead battery. So I called AAA. They came in under 15 minutes. These days the AAA truck carries replacement batteries with them in the truck. So I had the old battery replaced in under 15 minutes. $99 plus tax and I am on my way. The battery in the jeep was original equipment, six years and 100K miles.

So while Mary was recuperating in the hospital, Paula and I had a date night. We went to see “American Hustle”, then dinner at local Mexican restaurant.

Then on Wednesday, Mary was discharged from the hospital. We got her home and settled in. I think she was happy to be home. Pastor Jacques from Ocean View Baptist Church came to visit Mary that evening.

So for the past few days she has been resting and sleeping a lot. She gets up for meals. Sometimes she will watch the news on TV. Last night at about 6PM, she had a craving for a hamburger. So off I go to the In’n’Out drive thru for a burger and fries (no cheese, no onion). I guess she hasn’t lost her taste.

Ever since her fall on 12/22, she seems so much more frail. It’s like someone flipped a switch and all is gone. One of the home health aides came to talk with us on Saturday. We brought her up to speed on Mary’s recent health history. Probably starting physical therapy at home pretty soon.

Followup with the surgeon next Thursday. She now has got religion about using her cane. Even with the cane, we have to be very cautious. We had a near miss last night. While heading for her seat on the couch, she stumbled and almost fell. Luckily, Paula was there to catch her. Another fall this time would be catastrophic.

We feel that we can’t leave her alone for the time being. So that means finding someone to sit for us.

So when our children were little we had to find a baby sitter so that we could go out and have some time together alone. Now here we are decades later with the same problem. Is there a word for someone you use for watching over your frail parent? Baby-sitting doesn’t feel right, perhaps grandma-sitting or elder-sitting?

TTFN

Joe

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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Oyster

Posted January 11, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: apps, iPad, iPhone, Reviews, Technology
Tags: amazon, Kindle, Oyster, Review

I found out about a new ebook service by the name of “Oyster“. It purports to be the “Netflix” of eBooks. Here’s the concept. For the price of $9.95 per month, you get access to an unlimited number of books to read. It starts with a 30 day free trial, then they bill your credit card $9.95 every month.

So what the heck, I thought I would give it a try. I signed up for the free trial. Of course you have to give them a credit card number to establish your account. So far so good.

The web site advertises apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod. No Android. So far so good. I don’t think you can read book from the PC web applet. You can browse and add books to your reading list. To read you need to go to your iPhone or iPad. Not a big problem but something to consider.

You can search for books or authors from the iPad or iPhone app. Sorry Richard Bowker, your books aren’t available.

So I browsed their collection. There certainly isn’t anything available from current books from any best-seller lists. Most of the material is at least a few years old if not more. They do have some classics available. I got several hits for “Charles Dickens” and “F Scott Fitzgerald”.

So the $64,000 question is. Is it worth it? For me, probably not.

Cons:

The books that I download, can’t be viewed on Paula’s Kindle.
You can’t read on a laptop.
You would have to read at least 3 or more books per month to compete with Amazon. I started reading a book from 2010 by Dennis Lehane that sells for $7.59 on Kindle. Charles Dickens books on Amazon are either free or $1 – $3.
Scrolling on the apps are up-down rather than left-right. Perhaps this is a nit. It’s just my personal preference for reading eBooks. No option to change.
No note taking or book-marking features.

Pros:

Actually I’m having trouble thinking of any. Perhaps if the price were a tad lower, like $4.50 per month.

So I will finish the book that I started (Dennis LeHane’s “A Drink Before the War”) then cancel.

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Apps, Apps, Apps

Posted January 2, 2014 by joebowker
Categories: apps, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Reviews
Tags: Blogpress, Crosswords, Dropbox, Evernote, ForScore, GroceryIQ, PWsafe, Waze

I thought I would write about my favorite apps that I use on both my iPhone and iPad this past year. These are the apps that I use most every day. So in no particular order. The hyper links in each section will take you to the appropriate iTunes App Store location.

Waze

Waze is a GPS app for iPhone and iPad. Though I use it primarily with my iPhone. Waze uses the internet to provide real-time traffic updates. The only major drawback is that it needs a network connection to provide routing information. This happened to us last fall up in Kern County, CA which is in the middle of nowhere. The app is free that is to say it is supported by ads. When you pull up to a traffic light, it will let you know where a nearby business is.

Evernote

Evernote is more than just a note taking app. It is an total environment. The app itself is free, however you can get Evernote Pro for $5 per month or $45 per year that provides additional features like syncing with the cloud.

There are Evernote apps for iPhone, iPad, PC, and Mac. So with syncing to the cloud you can seemlessly move a note from iPhone to PC, for example.

There are many companion apps that integrate with Evernote. Recipe app called “Food” for managing recipes and restaurants. Sketch for doing drawings. There is a journaling app for keeping a daily journal.

You can create multiple notebooks. You can create tags for easy search and retrieval. There is also a handy email connection that allows one to forward an email to your Evernote account on the network. There is an web clipping for all of the major web browsers.

Crosswords

Where would I be without access to crosswords. There are several crossword apps available, but my favorite is Crosswords by Standalone, Inc. It provides many free subscriptions to quality crossword providers. You can also get subscriptions (for a fee) to NY Times. Difficulty levels range from easy to very difficult.

Dropbox

Dropbox is cloud storage. I use it to store all of important files that I don’t want to lose. I use it for storing pictures, insurance files, financial documents, and sheet music files and much much more. Files get automatically stored in the cloud including pictures taken with your iCamera. If I recall correctly you get either 5 or 10 Gb for free. I get 100 Gb for $10 per month. There are dropbox apps for iPhone, iPad, PC, Mac and Android.

ForScore

ForScore is my music score management app. When I got my first iPad, I just used a PDF app for keeping my sheet music PDF files. I then discovered “Forscore”. I upload each PDF file from Dropbox. Then I add composer info, tags, genre (eg. pop, country, classical, etc.), key signature.

I can create set lists for songs that I typically play during various parts of lodge meetings.

ForScore is only available on iPad. Sorry Android fans.

GroceryIQ

GroceryIQ is a shopping list app. It’s free, which is to say that it is ad supported. It is available for iPhone, iPad, PC, Mac and Android. It allows you to sync shopping lists between devices. You can scan barcodes in order to add items to your list. Only downside is you can’t scan is store brands.

You can customize the app for each store’s aisles so that items appear in the proper order that you might find them in each store. It’s real handy to add items to the PC app and then have them available on the iPhone version.

My only complaint is that when you add items for one store, and then go to a different store it is difficult to changer all of the items to the different store.

PWsafe

PWsafe is an encrypted Pass Word Safe. Today it is very difficult to remember all of one’s passwords to a multitude of web sites. This app makes it easy and secure. You can secure with a password safe database on Dropbox. All you need to remember is the password to the Password safe. I must have usernames and passwords for over one hundred different sites. None of the passwords are the same. Apps for iPad, iPhone, PC and MAC. App is free, except for feature to sync with Dropbox.

BlogPress

BlogPress is the app that use to write my blog posts. This post was written using BlogPress. It connects to my account on WordPress. It works for me. Drafts can be stored online and later edited on the PC App.

That’s about it for now. Maybe later I’ll do a post on apps that I despise. But for now this is my list of favorite apps.

TTFN,

Joe

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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A New Year’s Prayer

Posted December 31, 2013 by joebowker
Categories: Uncategorized

So here we are at December 31. I am not particularly good at writing prayers and the like. But my good friend, Reb Katherine, is. I received the following from her this morning. I couldn’t agree more. Rev. Katherine is the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Billerica.

Dear friends, may all of God’s blessings be with you in this coming year. It’s kind of funny to think about how humans mark the cycle of time. We calculate age, count anniversaries, celebrate important days annually. I guess it has something to do with being human. I’ve always had animals (dogs, cats, birds, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, mice, and a rabbit) and they have never marked the passage of time, or celebrated holidays (except for the dogs who look expectantly at their Christmas stockings.) But we do, and with the dawning of a new year we hang onto hope that life will go well.

Let’s join together and pray that things go well for us. And let us pray for those who things are not going very well.

This is my prayer:

Holy one, we enter into a new year with hearts turned towards you. We pray for health and healing, for comfort and peace for those who are dying, for your presence to be felt by those who are mourning. We pray that our needs be met, and that the needs of all people will be met. Give us generous hearts so that we might share out of your abundant gifts, and give us humble hearts so that we might receive the gifts you give. We pray for strength and courage in adversity, and we pray that you give power to those who are addicted so that they may overcome their addictions and live in freedom. We pray for peace, hope, love, joy, faith, wholeness and laughter, in Jesus’ holy name.

A happy, joyous and safe new year to all!

Katherine

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2013 in review

Posted December 31, 2013 by joebowker
Categories: Uncategorized

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,300 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 38 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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On the fifth day of Christmas

Posted December 29, 2013 by joebowker
Categories: California, Family

Today is Sunday, Dec 29, 2013. The fifth day of Christmas. Another warm beautiful day in So Cal. Forecast in the 70’s.

Mary is doing better today. She is getting around better by herself. She seems to be using her cane almost all of the time and that’s a good thing. Perhaps we can move to a walker once she gets use of her left arm back.

We asked her if she wanted to go to church this morning. She aid no. We were able to leave her alone for the hour and half. Instead of going out to lunch, we cooked scrambled eggs and bacon for brunch at home.

In other news, it seems that our friends at First Congregational Church in Billerica are in need of a new furnace. Cost is expected to be in the range of $5,000. And of course it was not budgeted. You never budget for stuff like this.

So if you’re looking a place for charitable donations at the end of the year, consider sending some money to First Congo. It’s not fun being without heat at this time of year. Go to the First Congo web site for details.

TTFN

Joe

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:San Pedro

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On the third day of Christms…

Posted December 27, 2013 by joebowker
Categories: Family
Tags: Christmas, Family

… my true love gave to me.

Paula and Mary are off to the beauty shop to get their hair done. Then they are headed to the Little Company of Mary hospital to get an MRI done on Mary’s shoulder.

So for 2 hours, I am master of my domain. Seeing as this is the bicentenial of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth, so I got a new (to me) recording from 1961 of Verdi’s Otello. Loaded it up on iTunes on my PC and cranked up the volume. None of this ear bud stuff. I have a sound system connected to my laptop. Sub woofer and everything. Here’s the link to iTunes. I have a couple more operas on my short list to get when I get a chance.

Then I did some post Christmas shopping. Paula said she would give me a new pair of LL Bean leather slippers. She said, “be a dear and order it yourself”. So I did. Same price as before Christmas and free shipping. Would have been nice if LL Bean had a sale on, oh well.

I then downloaded a couple of sample Kindle books from Amazon. I’m not buying anymore books until I finish Doris Kearn Goodwins’ tome on FDR. I’m about half way through it.

So Mary is looking a little bit better, but still very frail.

TTFN

Joe

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad