Sometimes problems bring good.

A few weeks ago, our gas clothes dryer of 18 years quit heating. I messed with it enough to see that I couldn't fix it easily and our laundry room is quite small and difficult to work in, so we decided to go ahead and get a new set. It couldn't be delivered until the following week, and we had planned a get away to celebrate 52 years of wedded bliss, so our son met the guys and got it installed.
We got home last weekend and of course had dirty clothes from the trip to try out the new stuff. Really cool with honest to goodness bells and whistles, though we tried to get the most simple set we could find (within reason). However before the first load got dry, it stopped and flashed “Check Vent”... I wrestled the washer over so I could look behind the dryer and maybe that flimsy flexible duct that hooked it to the outside vent was kinked. Moved it out a bit and tried again. Over the next couple of days,  3 times I had moved the units around and checked and messed with the vent thinking with the tight room it was that the flexible connector was getting kinked. After making sure that wasn’t the problem, I decided to go in to Dick Van Dyke’s (where we bought it)  and talk with them about the sensitivity of their machine. I took the reading material with me that I had quickly scanned. Before I turned onto the interstate, the thought hit me (I must believe it was that still small voice), to pull over and look at them again. This time my eyes went quickly to the details of checking the vent and rested on, “make sure it is clear to the outside”. Since our washroom is in the center of the house, there is a long run between floors to the vent out back. I remembered that a few years ago, the flapper on the outside had come off and birds were trying to build in there before I got a new one up. I thought I had checked that and put up a new one. (Don’t get ahead of me here.) I had seen some helpers online about clearing ducts (heating ducts) a few weeks ago, and had thought about doing that with the dryer vent before installing the new one. However with the trip, etc. things got too tight to do that. Part of the “helper” was to stick a blower down the vent and put a vacuum on the other end. Well I couldn’t do that. The outside vent is at least 10 feet off the ground since our laundry room is on the second floor. Anyway, I came back home and moved the stuff again and stuck a blower down the vent and all kinds of lint came back into the room and it was obvious that it was plugged. So I went outside, crawled up on a ladder and stuck a long stick with hooks on it that I had put together to string outdoor Christmas lights in and pulled out all kinds of nesting material and lint. Then went back in and hit it with the blower. After going back and forth between blowing and pulling, I got it all cleaned out and you could see daylight from the washroom by looking down the vent. After cleaning up the mess and showering, I ran another load of wash and this time no “Check Vent” warning. I do believe that problem is solved. So, maybe the old drying going bad (It had no sensor on it)... saved us from burning our house down???? Will never know, but will always think that the failure of the dryer saved our house from burning down. Of course it is possible that the plugged vent caused the dryer to fail, but I would have expected the motor to fail rather than the heater.... Who knows???? Now of course the deck on the back of our house is decorated with little tufts of lint until the weather finishes cleaning it up.

Kellners, Kellners Everywhere

As long as I can remember, my last name has been a problem. I remember my dad pronouncing it "Kneller, K N E L L E R" or sometimes "Kneller K N E double L E R".... Wondered why he did that. Didn't take long for me to find out. Probably the most common misheard version was "Miller". Don't know how many times if I just said "Kneller" (For those uninformed, the K is silent), the clerk would look and look and not be able to fine my file. Sometimes I would say "Kneller with a K". Well that would through them for a loop and I would need to start over. So I would then say, "It's like your knee, the K is silent". After fumbling around a bit they would then find the file and I would feel embarrassed as if it was my fault that they couldn't figure it out. Then comes the written version. I started putting a card, driver's license, or something that had my name written on it so we wouldn't have to go through all that. Invariably, they would then say "Oh, Kellner"... I do remember hearing my dad say, "Look at it" Where is the "n"? Tending to be a bit less confronting, I would go back to the "It's like your knee KNELLER". Of course I don't know why this confusion should surprise me. How many people do you know who pronounce "Pharynx" as Pharnyx or "Larynx" as Larnyx?????
So why am I boring you with my daily cross to bear? You see, the only time I had ever heard Kellner or saw it was when folks confused my name. I have been known to look in phone books for Knellers and Kellners and rarely found either one. Recently my world came crashing down. A new apartment complex went up on my route to work. This is the same route I've taken to work, hospitals, etc. for 19 years. Here is the sign in front of the complex:

I almost drove off the road. Of course at first, I thought it might be a relative, but quickly noted that the "n" was indeed after the "ll" and it was truly Kellner. You realize that now, all Knellers in the CU area now have our frustrations turned up a notch or 2 because there is no chance people will get our name correct now that they have seen this wretched sign. So should I call them and complain? Probably not. There may be a time that I do call them and ask them to read this post. Surely they will get a kick out of it.

Well that isn't the end of this tale. Last week Georgia and I finally got to take a trip to Door County, Wisconsin. We had gotten a late start and were nearing the end of the trip when lo and behold, a road popped up, then again, and again. Somewhere between Milwaukee and Green Bay Wisconsin there is a little town named ....... yes..... a town; Kellnersville. Anquish rose. There it is again. Why must I be tormented by these people? Here is some info: http://www.city-data.com/city/Kellnersville-Wisconsin.html Kellnersville

I'm trusting that all you Knellers whether by birth or by mate choice fully understand my problem. Only those female Knellers who "married out of the name" can chuckle as they escaped this issue. I know some really great people who carry the name (Kneller) and although we have traced our lineage to Bavaria, Sir Godfrey Kneller did his part to give us a bit of status in old England.  Godfrey Kneller
Of course, if you look too closely at him, you will get more confusion over the name. Gottfried Kniller
Kniller, Kneller, Kellner, Miller..... I give up. Guess I will continue to be Kneller K N E L L E R and just smile as I got through the process of getting folks to understand who I am. I must wonder how many young ladies hesitated before "taking" that name, or felt duped once they too realized the difficulty of bearing the name!!! 

More things to notice on this trek through life.

After working for a week at the Missouri VMTH we are "stuck" in the Tiger Hotel 
because Georgia is feeling punky and not up to traveling today. So to make use of the time, I thought I should do a posting since the last post was just after my cardiac bypass surgery. 

Plaque on Tiger Hotel

Let me start by saying that this locum was great. The residents I worked with were wonderful and everyone I interfaced with was just super. A really fun time, except that Georgia couldn't get out much. We decided to step it up a bit in housing and rented an Executive Suite at the Tiger. Pretty swanky place for a refurbished old hotel. Not sure I would ever get used to depending on hotel employees for everything when I'm so use to doing things myself.  

Georgia in Louisiana, Missouri on the Mississippi

I may come back to this, but I started thinking about writing a post when we crossed the Mississippi River in Louisiana, Missouri where we stayed in a refurbished 1850's building at The Eagles Nest Bed and Breakfast. It was a great mixture of modern and quaint (again much like the Tiger). One of the things we liked about that place was that we didn't feel pressured to interact with others. The breakfast was great. Louisana seems to really be working on becoming a touristy river town, but may have a long road because although the main street of town is going through some really nice renovation, when you get away from there, you see lots of empty buildings run down residences. Not sure they will be able to overcome this enough for folks to want to come and visit. Hope so, but not sure. We came here because it was on the route from home to Columbia, Missouri, home of the Missouri Tigers. 

So as we left Pittsfield, Illinois and I-72 to head across the countryside toward Columbia, we had noticed that we were in Pike County, Illinois. As I walked around Louisiana Sunday morning, I noticed on one of the town's 20 murals that it was dedicated to Zebulon Pike, the caucasian discoverer of Pike's Peak in Colorado. We started seeing his name around town and as we pulled out, it was clear that we were in Pike County, Missouri. My mind flashed back to our many trips on I-74 between Champaign County Illinois and the various places we have frequented over the years in Indiana. On that trip, you go through Danville, Illinois which is in Vermillion County, Illinois. You go from there to Vermillion County, Indiana. So I got to thinking..... I'm betting the area names probably came about before the State lines were drawn and many lines were drawn through communities. So now of course, I wonder how many adjacent counties of the same name in different states actually exist. Not sure I have the gumption to research that. Maybe that would be easiest done as a Facebook project by asking folks to list the ones they know. Hmmmmmm... OK, Guess that's all on that subject. Any thoughts? 
 
Back to the locum work. One very important thing to note is that as a St. Louis Cardinal fan, it certainly is an honor to be working in Clydesdale Hall. Need to see if it was named after some person named Clydesdale or if it could be named after the horses. I must wonder because all over the vet school are images of mules, so I think the Missouri Mule has taken up residence there. So here is a picture of Clydesdale Hall. 

Another important fact is that Clydesdale Hall is across the street from several Agriculture building including the Dairy Department's Bucks Ice Cream  where one of the imaging residents took me the last day during a light point in the schedule. Not sure, but I'm thinking he is a frequent partaker. He also knew quite a bit about Sparkys Ice Cream downtown. I have to agree that it is pretty tasty ice cream (Mizzou).... (Didn't make it to Sparky's). Well, that reminded me of our days on the Purdue campus where the Dairy Department's Ice Cream was also a favorite. And According to the Edam Cheeseballs that are shipped to us each fall by our friend Mike Thomas, at Mississippi State, the Dairy folks there turn out some really good cheese. Guess that could be another research project, to see what the different universities put out that is good besides students.  

I can't close this without mentioning other food. Friends took us out to eat at a couple of really tasty places,  Addisons  is right around the corner from us at the Tiger. A happening place with really tasty food. Then I got to

reconnect with a former imaging resident from Illinois Jesse Nagy and his fantastic wife Dusty who took me to Chris McDs  for some more tasty goodies. Speaking of seeing former colleagues, There was Keith Branson in anesthesiology and Keven Keagan in equine (although Dave Wilson was away and I missed hooking up with Philip Johnson, but did get to see one of my favorites from Oregon State, Shannon Reid. Dusty by the way works with Food Animals. Before I get off the food, I must mention that our next door neighbors are familiar with Columbia as their daughter did her college work at the U of Missouri. The place they mentioned that stuck in my mind was Shakespeares Pizza    which is temporarily on 8th street, just down the block from us. We ate there twice. That tell you anything???? As an aside, here is a cute little thing that occurred while eating with Jesse and Dusty. Another former resident with whom I wrote the book, is a graduate of the vet school at the University of Missouri and knows Jesse and Dusty well. While we were eating he sent me a message pertaining to the book and asked if I had run into Jesse. Shortly after that, he texted Jesse to tell me "Hi" if he saw me. So I snapped this picture and texted it to him.... His reply, "I take it that Jesse said "hi" for me."    

I think I have rambled enough for now. while we were in Missouri, we missed the gender reveal to unveil our 4th great grandchild (and first girl) Penelope Jane and  a celebration of completion of high school work for our grand-daughter CJ. It was fun and fulfilling, but ready to get back home. Wondering what shape the gardens are in at this point.