Archive for February 2022
The Longer I Live . . .
. . . and the more I see, hear and read about the doings of mankind,
the more I appreciate Noah’s wisdom of letting only animals climb aboard his ark.
Picture a Home Inventory
Having a handy reference should fire, water or burglar disrupt or destroy your home will make it much easier to deal with any agencies involved in recouping damaged or lost property.
Any camera, including your cell phone, can produce a visual record of what you have that you can show police or insurance company what you’ve lost.
Start by shooting your yard and the exterior of your home, garage, patio, and all the plants and yardwork equipment, swimming pool, vehicles, tools and “stuff” you have. Everything, including your pets.
Then do the same inside the house with every room and every piece of furniture with the drawers closed and opened to show their contents. Don’t forget your liquor cabinet. And all that’s hanging and stuffed into your closets. If you some special pieces, you can set them in the middle of the living room floor and shoot them separately.
Whether you’ve shot video or still photos, copy the contents in your computer and onto two or three thumb drives. Store those drives off premises, such as a safety deposit box and with a member of your family.
Favorites From the ‘60s
There probably still are 50-year-old things around the house that recall the 1960s.
How about that pair of ugly but comfortable Birkenstocks? And that packet of M&Ms tucked into the kitchen cupboard?
A constant reminder of that decade are those big square brown trucks UPS still uses as is your color television set, which came into its own in the mid ‘60s. Alex Trebek and “Jeopardy” began their amazing run about the same time as “Star Trek” ventured “where no man has gone before.”
The Big Mac and Pop-Tarts emerged during the decade along with a healthier counterpart, Gatorade.
Both James Bond and The Beatles popped into our culture then along with the pill, that planted seeds for the later sexual revolution.
A recent call for authors . . .
. . . by the Union-Tribune alumni blogster prompted me to recall, and then to write, this.
It was my writing of a book made possible by a 1967 Canadian centennial grant matched by the H.J. Heinz Co. that financed a six-week vacation to California I cajoled out of my newspaper boss and that convinced me we had to move there.
Titled “The Tomato Capital,” it was (is, if there are any copies around anywhere) a history of the southern Ontario city of Leamington on the north shore of Lake Erie that’s the HQ of the Heinz company’s Canadian operations.
More recently, I collaborated in San Diego with a TV anchor and two daily newspaper columnists with whom many 919ers are familiar to write “Close Encounters With the 4th Estate,” which is a bit more readable and was much more fun to produce.
Shortage of Medical Staff
The aging population not only is creating more demand for medical services, it’s also accelerating the shortage of doctors and nurses as they approach retirement age.
As the 65-and-over population grows by almost 50 percent over the next decade, almost the same percentage of doctors will join that phalanx during the same period.
We expect to be almost 140,000 physician short of what we need by 2033, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, reports Bottom Line.
To protect yourself, you can look for a younger doctor to care for you should your current physician retire. You also can seek a primary care physician affiliated with a group practice so there will be a medical doctor there to serve you should your current doctor leave.
Pandemic Packing
There are so many of rules and regulations affecting travel these days, you have to make sure you don’t get quarantined during your journey. There’s more to be concerned about than the COVID -19 coronavirus.
Diseases that have been conquered here still run free in many other parts of the world.
Travelers can protect themselves by taking some extra care when packing medications for their trip.
Malaria still is a threat because it’s transmitted by mosquitoes. Travelers should pack mosquito repellant and avoid areas where the insects thrive. Mosquitos also spread yellow fever and some countries require proof of vaccination before allowing travelers entry.
There is no known protection against West Nile virus, Dengue fever and a few other similar possibly-fatal disorders spread by mosquitos so the only protection is to avoid areas where these creatures breed.
Hepatitis A & B still are perils that you can be shielded from by three immunizations. A vaccination can protect you from meningitis and a booster shot can ward off polio if you’ve been immunized earlier.
Before leaving on any trip, have a chat with your primary care physician to protect yourself on your travels.
The End of a Saga
It girdled two years: from January 2020 to the other day.
The plot was pegged to an Air Canada Phoenix – Toronto round-trip business-class ticket.
After receiving flight confirmation that January and looking forward to what I deemed would be a final fare-thee-well visit to family, relatives and friends around my brother’s July birthday, Air Canada began suspending flights in March and things still haven’t returned to normal for cross-border travel.
The airlines’ first response was to offer ticket holders vouchers valid for two years. I filed a claim like everyone else but had little hope I would get to use it. Then, after Air Canada applied for financial assistance from the Canadian government, the assistance was provided with a condition the Air Canada give its stranded ticket holders refunds if they wished instead of vouchers. I filed for a refund.
A simple phone call was all it took to recoup my travel insurance charge.
Early last year, I received an email with a case number telling me how much Air Canada was going to deposit in the account of the credit card I used to purchase my ticket. I was instructed to check on the status of my case/claim at an online address that I couldn’t get into and called Air Canada reservations a couple of times before being told during a phone call last summer that I was still in the system but there was no information on when my claim would be dealt with.
Suddenly last Wednesday an email popped up telling me my refund had been processed and would be sitting in my credit card account sometime within the next two months. If it didn’t show up on my credit card statement within that time, I was to call the credit-card company and give them the purchase date and ticket number to check and make good on the refund.
I was set to sit out another series of emails and phone calls when MAGICALLY is showed up Sunday on my credit card account, which I check regularly on line.
It set up a feeling that maybe I should look at resurrecting plans for that trip to celebrate my brother’s birthday and attend the relatives’ annual picnic in a nearby city but coronavirus rules and regulations are still in place. When I did a cursory check, I discovered that settling for a voucher would not have been a good idea because the lowest price for that same ticket is almost $600 more.
Mature Life Features 