my education continues

On our way home from Michigan, I did not want to run the south Chicago/northwest Indiana gauntlet, so we wen't down 69. We had thoughts of stopping by the Comer's, but got away from Lansing too late to make that work. As we came near Angola, Indiana, we stopped at a rest stop. To me, Angola means Buck Lake Ranch. As a kid in the 50's that was one outing that seemed to be the highlight of the summer when we got to go. Georgia even with there with us at least one time. At the rest stop was a guy cleaning up. I asked him if he lived around there and he said that he had just returned. So I asked him if Buck Lake Ranch was still active and as it was. He assured me that it was. That really brought me some warm fuzzies. I remember all 4 of us wearing shirts alike that were either boughten or sometime mom would make them. Took picnic lunch and watched "the show" with Harry Smythe as the master of ceremonies. So I found the website and find that I am not alone in my querie. http://www.bucklakeranch.com/. That was neet, but wasn't my education. As I grew up, there was a term for something that was big or bad or noteworthy, called a doozy. A black eye was often a doozy as was a wreck. As we passed Auburn, Indiana which is the home of the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum http://www.auburn-in.com/ there was a billboard that said, "It is a Duesy" with pictures of the vintage Duesenberg auto. It hit me right between the eyes. For the next 40 miles, I'm thinking, "there is something else that I've had wrong all my life. Of course a Duesy is something really noteworthy because it is being compared with the Duesenberg automobile which was noteworthy, though short lived. Well, I'm glad that I have that straight now. I wonder how many other people have this misconception. After all there is nothing I know of that would be a doozy, right?" Couldn't wait to get to the computer to check it out. So here is where my education came. There does seem to be some confusion over the term. You can find it as "doozy" or doozie, or "doosy". http://wandersponders.blogspot.com/2006/10/doosy.html But their doesn't seem to be a concensus, if fact, some folks even had the Idea that it related to the Duesenberg, but the word was apparently coined before the automobile was developed. If you have any interest, you can read http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-doo2.htm This guy says it is a bastardization of daisy, which seems to me even more out of line, but what do I know. This site http://www.thefreedictionary.com/doozy even plays the middle with the following definition:

Getting a little more "official, Merriam's Webster says:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doozy
Now that I've found out that all possible versions of the truth seem to be acceptable, I guess my life will not change over this little incident. I need to ask my cousin Mike who lives in the Auburn area which version he uses. I expect that I will have about the same conviction about that as I will have toward the election this fall. Which one is the best, or is there any difference???

Heading home again

After a great weekend, we spent evenings this week at more great eating places. Monday nite, we ate leftovers from Sunday at the Mermaid. Tuesday at PF Chang's, probably the tastiest oriental eating establishment I know http://www.pfchangs.com/ , Wednesday at Claddagh's Irish Pub at the prompting of a Spartan vet at the U of I. http://www.claddaghirishpubs.com/ Oh! Wow! I had corned beef and cabbage and Georgia had Shepherd's Pie. We again both had enough for lunch the next day. Not only was the food great, but the Irish music took me back to when I remember sitting in my grandpa Herron's "living room" with "uncle Roy" and others, all sitting in a circle, each with a different instrument. We would play a song (me on my ukelele) then they would pass their instrument to the next person and play another jig or reel, etc. (I of course held onto my trusty Uke.. After all, I couldn't have been over 8 or 10.. I might need some help on dates here from my sister or aunt Pat or Donn.) Mom and Dad loved to square dance. Sometimes dad would "call" the dance. I remember going to at least one "Grange Hall" several times. When the hours got late, we kids would sleep in the coats on the bleachers. As I got a little musical, I would sit in the band with my Uke and strum along as with the Herron clan, watching the fingers of the guitar player to know which chord I should change to. Later on we kids joined in the dancing. What wholesome exercise we got back then. I know that people still square dance, but line dancing and clogging seem to have replaced much of it. http://www.dosado.com/articles/hist-maca.html http://www.ceder.net/ That brings us to Thursday nite. This was one of the most pleasant evenings we've had along with the most original meal. Dr. Russ Stickle, a retired radiologist and his wife, Dr. Julie Stickle, an active clinical pathologist at Michigan State invited us out to their 80 acre farm east of town. Since Julie had to work until quite late, Russ prepared the meal of fresh garden salad including sugar snap peas, rice, and venison steaks on the grill, with root beer floats for dessert. These root beer floats were phenomenal because the root beer was from the local Michigan Brewing Company in Webberville and wasn't your average A and W. http://www.we8there.com/rest_detail.php?busid=8650busid=8650 The meal and the conversation was great, but the highlight of the evening was meeting Dolly, Chucky, and George. George took a liking to Georgia and I'm afraid I have a rival now for her affections. As you can see he certainly is more "buff" than I. Oh, I didn't tell you. Dolly, Chucky and George are Percherons. George and Chucky weigh approximately a ton each. Here is a picture of Dolly and Chucky, a couple of George, and one of George and Georgia. We got to look over their pasture fields with a few cows, calves and a bull surrounded by a nice woods and flanked by a just harvested hay field. Eat my heart out!!!! Well, if we can't have it, we're glad such a nice couple as the Stickles can enjoy this little bit of heaven on earth.

That brings us to our last nite in the Lansing area. Although we weren't blogging last fall when we were here, you may remember that Georgia's favorite place here is the Italian place in the Eastwood Towne Center http://www.shopeastwoodtownecenter.com/ is Bravo http://www.bravoitalian.com/ . We ate there twice this trip, but last fall it was 3 times. I might also remind you that the Eastwood center is really great in all. The Hampton where we are staying is just across the highway (127) from this mall. All of the eating places mentioned here except for the Stickles' are in that mall, along with Mitchell's Fish market, Smokey Bones, Johnny Rocket, Champs, etc. As usual, the meal was great and a fitting "last meal" in the area. Two great places we missed this trip, but enjoyed last fall are Clara's http://www.claras.com/lanwalk/lanwalk2.html A converted train station with great decor and food and a quaint little "hole in the wall" italian place downtown where the radiology faculty took us last fall, called Emil's http://www.10best.com/Lansing/Restaurants/Best_Restaurants/Emil%7Cs_Bar_&_Restaurant_Lansing_MI_BID_52359/

Although most of my ravings are about non-chain establishments, there are a few chains here that seem to rise above the average "same place/different name" eating places. We'll probably stop at the pie company on our way out of town http://www.gtpie.com/locations/tc.php. There is a little story about the Grand Traverse Pie Company. Last fall while we were at the Parke County, Indiana Covered Bridge Festival which we hav attended for the last 25 years or so, http://www.coveredbridges.com/ Georgia's neice found this store in Terre Haute where we were staying. Seems there used to be one in Indianapolis. Good Pie, etc. So last Tuesday, the radiology folks here invited me to their "Pie Rounds" where they discuss some medical topic around the fireplace before work ... at the Pie Company. I took Georgia there and we ate there a couple of times last week. Of course, we're not sure when that will be because, although we have been here 2 weeks, there are some "last minute" things we have to do.. Again we really enjoyed our stay in East Lansing. Although I still can't root for Sparty, the people I worked with and those we have met are really great. I guess we can be rivals in sports, but friends on a daily basis.

Our Western Michigan weekend

After our spring of going to distant places, the idea of traveling 2 hours to spend the weekend on the Lake Michigan shore didn't seem like much. Georgia found the Yelton Manor B&B in South Haven. http://www.yeltonmanor.com/ . We really enjoyed being pampered by Robert and Elaine who have turned these 2 houses into a flower lover's dream, a book lover's treasure, and an adventure just to poke around the house looking at the nooks and crannies found there. The only "downer" of the weekend was the rain that came now and then. Here is Georgia taking pictures of the flowers in the rain.

Saturday, after driving around the shoreline town of South Haven, we decided to go to Douglas for a late lunch, etc. We had tried to eat at the Everyday People Cafe http://everydaypeoplecafe.com/ a couple of years ago, but they close while they change decor between lunch and dinner. This time with a little planning, we hit it right. Really good and somewhat different food. There were some shops there that Georgia was interested in and I stumbled onto a vintage baseball game. The Douglas Dutchers Baseball Club was playing a game across the street from the cafe. I was really taken with just how different it was. http://www.preserveamerica.gov/3-18-04PAcommunity-douglasMI.html http://mattgritter.blogspot.com/2007/05/1860s-baseball.htmlbaseball.html You can see my comment on this second blog. Here are a couple of pictures I took. We got back in time to watch another lakeshore sunset, then went for dinner at Tello Italian Bistro in South Haven. http://www.tellostrattoria.com/ That took me past my bedtime. The food was really good and Georgia said her pizza was just like she got in Italy. Well, they do claim to be authentic. I forgot, on the way back to South Haven we stopped at the Blue Star Cafe, which is a little 50's place (real, not retro) where we ate a few years ago and got ice cream. http://www.mrbreakfast.com/r_display.asp?restid=5479

Sunday morning after breakfast, we packed up, collected our start of "sundrop primrose" from Elaine and headed for downtown South Haven. We turned to corner and Georgia spotted the Seaglass Store http://www.seaglasscottage.com/index.htm Georgia said she had been looking for seaglass in Florida, Oregon and California,yet here it is in Michigan. I asked about seaglass in Lake Michigan and the lady said there is and she showed us several items a local artisan make from glass collected on the shore of Lake Michigan. Anyway, a pretty cool place with lots of lakeshore type decor. After poking around in some other shops, we headed on to Saugatuck for the Mermaid Bar and Grill, where we had eaten on the last trip here... .and remembered just how good it was. http://mermaidofsaugatuck.com/ And it was, again. It seemed a little pricy (Or "spendy" if you're from Oregon.), but we had the rest of our meals for dinner tonite and there is still some left. (Bring your cooler for leftovers). By that time, we had about all we wanted, so didn't even wander Saugatuck (we had been there before). Drove the short trip "home" with the sun at our back. Got to talk with the folks from Briarcliff as we pulled into East Lansing. Today was "another day at work" with 4 more to go before we head home.

Return to Michigan State

Before we started posting our travels, we had already done a couple of stints, one at Purdue U in late summer and one at Michigan State U just before Thanksgiving. We are now in the middle of a 2 week locum at Michigan State and will do another 2 weeks at Purdue in July. But for now, we are at the weekend between the 2 weeks at Michigan State. To make it more than a work trip, we decided to make the 2 hour trip to South Haven for the weekend. South Haven is on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, and a beautiful place to play. It is also just minutes from the Saugatuck/Douglas area which is Georgia's "Mendocino of the Midwest". We were there a couple of years ago. We got here in time to see the sunset. As best I can tell, these pictures are of Milwaukee at sunset.... from across the lake. We got here at the Yelton Manor http://www.yeltonmanor.com/ last evening in time to go see the sunset and walk around the corner to this little shop called Northside Memories http://www.findlocalcatering.com/Michigan/North-Side-Memories-36028.html that seems to have everything in the drink and snack realm you would ever want.

Came back to the room and settled in with "Charlie Wilson's War", but you know who drifted off to dreamland after about 7 minutes. I got up and showered to start my day. I walked out the front door to find this little guy feeding on Elaine's flowers. Since they were Elaine's flowers and not mine, I decided to leave him alone. I feel so satisfied that we were able to raise a beautiful crop of tulips this spring in the face of rabbits running all over the neighborhood. Among the myriad of flowers around these 2 houses is a little yellow flowering plant that seems to thrive most everywhere. I asked Elaine about it this morning to find that it is an indigenous midwestern primrose (Oenothera tetragona..sundrop)(that I don't think I have seen before). Elaine considers herself the "Johnny Appleseed" of this plant and promised us a start (if we remember to remind her). If we get it to take hold in Illinois like here, there will be starts for all who desire in a year or so. It's about time for a breakfast that smells delicious, then we'll saunter around to see what else we can discover.

Although I am enjoying my time at Michigan State, I stumbled on to a couple of interesting things. First, the odds of coming back to MSU for a locum seem to diminish when I found out that although they are losing one radiologist to Colorado State U, they have hired THREE.... yes three new ones. It seems that at this point, vet schools either have radiologists or they don't. So we will have to make the most of this trip. If you are a diligent reader of these posts, you should know of my disdain for inadequate street signs. Well, here there are enough signs, but being a bit of a "compass head" and map fiend, with logic being the basis, I am dealing with a problem in East Lansing. One of the streets we take from the Hampton to the vet school is Abbot(t). Now why did I write it like that??? I don't know how to spell it. All of the little green street signs I have seen spell it Abbot, yet all of the businesses along the road use "Abbott"... Abbott Law Offices, etc. And to take it further, there is road construction on the north end and all of the ORANGE road signs that tell you about the roadwork spell it Abbott... How can I sleep at night when I can't figure out how to spell a simple thing like a street sign. If you come to visit us, you will find that at one end of our street it is spelled "Jeffery" like we spell the name of our "baby boy". Yet at the other end, the street signs spell it "Jeffrey". Alas, there is no order in this world. To make matters worse, There was an English artist who was a contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton who spelled his name Geoffrey Kneller http://www.handelhouse.org/img_info/george.html

best laid plans

As we will be doing short trips to Purdue, Michigan State and Oregon State interspersed with stints at the U of I, scheduling things like home maintenance and medical things is a bit tricky. We came home to find that we need to reroof the house and we will most likely change some flooring (if you wonder why a retired person works part time.) Georgia got the last appointment with our beloved GP Dr. Dunn (read old posts for reference). With that came a couple of other special appointments that come with age. My annual visit was with the new physician we chose, whom I like very much. (though he is "just a kid"). With that we decided to take the carpal tunnel issue seriously. Waking up at night with aching hands ain't no fun (as some of you know). http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/common/pain/disorders/023.htmlIn addition, Dr. Nelson piled on the sleep apnea train that got started when I had the little fainting spell a year ago. So, here was the schedule: May 29- carpal tunnel surgery on my left hand; June 3- sleep study; June 12- remove stitches from hand; and early July-follow up on sleep study. That's just for me. Georgia is trying to schedule around back pain and sinus infection for allergy retest and possibly another spinal injection.
Everything was clicking along well. Even got the Greenview guy worked in to tell us why the 5 lilac bushes we planted last summer were dying. That ties in with the sudden change in plans. The lilacs were planted somewhat between our house and the neighbors to the south. If you haven't noticed, the weather has been a bit unusual this spring. I'm thinking maybe 5-6 days withouth rain since April??? It appears lilacs don't like their "feet wet", and with all the rain, the runoff from both houses seems to be soaking that area, thus "drowning" our lilacs. I am also nervous for some of our rose bushes since the sump pump has pretty much constantly been dumping water under the deck.. So what does this have to do with anything? The carpal tunnel surgery went very well. Aside from being in a sling for a couple of days and a sharp pain when I forget that I had surgery, I hardly notice that the surgery occurred; except for the fact that my left hand no longer wakes me up at night!!!! Glory Be!!
I'm going to have to take you on a little side trip. I find that a quick and easy method of spellcheck that is useful no matter what program I am using is to put the estimated spelling into the little Google box, then search. It tells me pretty quickly. Well, I was bothered by the double c and double r in occurred (above), so did my spell check. Up came the following article about a major climate change 5200 years ago; http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/5200event.htm
Maybe Al Gore should check this out. Also they might all take a look at http://www.answersingenesis.org/
which might clear up a lot of things if they can accept the fact that God does exist.
Back to my issues. The next scheduled event was the sleep study. http://www.talkaboutsleep.com/sleep-basics/viewasleepstudy.htm
As I left about 8:45, pillow and jammies in hand the weather was beginning to kick up a bit. I got there, got checked in, got my jammies on and was waiting for the technician when the announcement came about a level 2 weather alert. We all had to toddle out to a central hallway and wait for about 45 minutes til the alert was lifted. (We = me, 5 women, and the technicians. Supposedly it is usually more men than women, but not on this nite.) While sitting in the hall in my pajamas, I find that we are next to a surgery waiting room. I look up and there is someone we used to go to church with as well as a former pastor who were apparently supporting someone in surgery. (How do you explain to a former pastor why you are sitting in the hall with 5 strange women, all in our pajamas???) After that we started getting

wired. We just got me wired up when the phone rang, asking for George Kneller. I said, "I'm Steve Kneller and my wife's name is Georgia, does that work?" The technician said I had an urgent phone call from my wife. (These pictures are from the website above... This is not me... notice-no beard!

Another detour: Having experienced the agony of failed back-up sump pump a few years ago, before we left for Oregon, we had a water powered pump installed. http://www.pumpbiz.com/products/index.cfm?fuseaction=pump_series&series_id=820
We went to Oregon with me feeling secure that our basement was safe. With the recent deluge

after deluge, I still felt secure.
There I stood with things stuck all over my body and Georgia says, "the basement is flooding".. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

Apparently, the sump was working great, but the water was coming in from the other side of the house. I have a small "shop" in one corner of the basement (with no carpet). In the past during the heaviest of rains, a damp spot would develop, but no appreciable water came in. Well, tonite there was more and it had reached the doorway (carpet). So, we quickly removed all the probes and stuff and I hurried home. I had been concerned that the recent surgery might interfere with the sleep study... not so! Got home, pulled the wet/dry vac from the garage and started sucking water. Georgia had been working at it with a mop and bucket, so between the 2 of us, (her with a bad back and me with one funcitonal hand) we got the water back from the carpet. It seems all is well at this point, except that the sleep study will now be on July 1 and the follow up sometime in August. Still working on scheduling work at Illinois, work at Oregon State, and surgery on the other hand. How did I get anything done when I was working every day??? I've heard it many times, but see that it really is true. Let's see what did we miss this week? Ava and Aidan's baseball games, Mahala's softball games, Melissa's birthday and my sisters wedding anniversary (same day). That's as much as I am aware of. I find I use that phrase a lot lately. When ask a question, my reply typically includes, "as much as I am aware".... I wonder why!