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Christmas at Howard Mesa – Part I

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I was dreaming of a white Christmas.

On the Friday before Christmas, Mike and I loaded up the truck with a bunch of things, including some furniture, food, tools, Jack the Dog, and Alex the Bird. At about 9 AM, we headed north, to our property at Howard Mesa.

In Wickenburg, it was raining. It was the first time there had been enough rain there to actually get your skin wet for at least a month. Part of me wanted to stay behind and enjoy the weather. But the other part of me knew that it was likely to clear up in an hour or two and I’d just be disappointed. We don’t get many good rainy days in the desert and Friday was not going to be one of them.

Our path took us up Route 93 to Route 89, through Congress and up Yarnell Hill. We stopped at the Cornerstone Bakery for some fresh baked goods to munch on in the car and enjoy on Saturday morning for breakfast. It was a freezing rain there, but nice and toasty in the bakery, which was filled with the usual collection of locals.

Back on the road, we took 89 through Peeples Valley, turned toward Kirkland at Kirkland Junction, got on Iron Springs Road in Kirkland, and followed that to the first traffic light in Prescott. Then Williamson Valley Road to the Pioneer Parkway to Willow Springs Road to 89A. In Chino Valley, we stopped at Safeway, where Mike filled the truck with diesel and I hurried through the store to get veggies and a few last-minute food items. By this time it was snowing pretty hard, with just enough wind to blow the flakes at about a 30° angle to the ground.

Back in the truck, we followed 89A to Ash Fork, where we got on I-40 eastbound. The snow was sticking up there, coating the road with a thin layer of snowy ice. Trucks and cars were taking it easy, preferring a self-mandated speed limit of 35 or 45 MPH rather than the legal 75 MPH limit. It was slow going, but I’m sure it was better that way. Alongside the road, a light dusting of snow covered fields and trees. It looked more like Christmas than it has in a long while for me.

At the exit for the Grand Canyon (the third exit, the one that’s really for the Grand Canyon), we got off and followed Route 64 northbound. There was a lot of snow on the ground there but very few vehicles. Still, we both felt relieved when we reached the turn for Howard Mesa and began our last five miles of the trip. 20 minutes later, we were pulling through our gate while the snow swirled around us.

The entire drive, including the two short stops, had taken about 4 hours.

Inside our camping shed, the temperature was hovering around 35°F — which was pretty much the same temperature as outside. Mike turned on the gas and I struggled a bit to get the heater turned on. He unloaded the car while I turned on the fridge and started putting things away. Jack the Dog immediately got to work terrorizing whatever small rodents had made homes in the fire pit outside. Alex hung out in the truck where it was warmer. He didn’t come in until the temperature had risen to nearly 50°.

My first main task was to clean up after our unwanted lodgers — the mice. The shed has a mouse problem that we’ve tried everything to solve. The last time we were there, we’d gotten desperate enough to leave poison around. I had to scoop up what remained of it (only one of four pieces) before Jack came in. Then I had to uncover the furniture and get the vacuum going to suck up the mouse droppings that seemed to be just about everywhere. I used a lot of disinfectant cleaner on the floor and countertops. I took my time about it — there really wasn’t any reason to rush; I had all day. I had my iPod sitting in the iHome base, playing Christmas songs. Within two hours, I was pretty much done.

In the meantime, Mike was working in the bathroom on the plumbing. On our last brief visit (by helicopter during snow showers), we had discovered that most of the pipes had frozen and cracked. Mike had brought along pipes and connectors and tools to replace the broken pipes with new ones. The job required that he cut away one wall to access the pipes and do a lot of disconnecting. There was no running water in the shed and wouldn’t be until the pipes were repaired. Even the 5-gallon water cooler jug was mostly frozen; I had to light a candle under its spigot to get the water to flow.

I made us a hot lunch of canned chili with scallions and cheese, then washed up using water I boiled on the stovetop. It reminded me of the old days at Howard Mesa, when we’d camped out in our pop-up camper. That camper was wonderful on warm summer nights, but it lacked basic conveniences, such as a refrigerator or toilet. We’d use the tiny two-burner stove to heat water in the morning for coffee and washing up. During the day, we’d use those solar shower bags to heat water for showering and washing dishes. (They really do work in Arizona; we once had the temperature of the water in one of those bags up to 110°F — too hot to shower in!)

After lunch, I went on mouse cleanup duty on the shed’s little loft, which is where we sleep when we camp there. I discovered a place where they might be getting in; I’ll work on closing it up this weekend. Outside, the snow was still falling lightly. Everything was covered with a dusting of it. Jack the Dog was still hard at work at the fire pit, with the fur on the lower half of his body soaking wet. Oddly enough, it wasn’t windy, even though the weather forecast had called for wind gusts up to 28 MPH. A low cloud hung over the mesa, cutting our view to only a few miles.

Before the end of the day, Mike had finished replacing all the cold water lines. He connected the hose from one of our water tanks to the shed’s water line, turned on the pump, and pressurized the system. That’s when he saw the cracks in the hot water lines. We turned off the pump and disconnected the hose, then let any water in the lines run out.

The sun went down and it got dark. We brought Jack in. I made leftovers from home for dinner. The heater, which had been set to 85°F, had gotten the temperature in the shed up to a high of 64°. It didn’t seem that cold. We settled down on the sofa with my 15″ MacBook Pro on a folding table in front of us. I popped in a DVD from the first season of 24. We watched two episodes. We’d heard a lot about the show but had never actually seen it. So I’d added it to my Netflix queue (along with the second season of Boston Legal) and we were checking it out for the first time. Not bad. I can’t imagine watching it with commercials, though.

I slept badly. It’s the stupid hot/cold/hot/cold middle-aged woman thing, combined with the sounds of sleeping someplace different. It was pretty quiet when we first got to sleep, but at about 3 AM, the wind finally kicked up, blowing from the west right at the loft’s only window. I’d left the window open a crack — I’m always worried about asphyxiation in a closed space with a gas appliance running — and Mike had to close it. Sometime during the early morning hours, the wind shifted around to the northeast, which is the back side of the shed. It wasn’t blowing hard enough to shake the building, as it sometimes does. Just loud enough to hear it rushing past in the piñon and juniper pines scattered over our 40 acres. The sky had cleared and there were billions of stars out.

In the morning, the temperature in the shed was 43&degF with the outside temperature 28&deg. This was a problem. The heater was turned up, still set on 85°. As we moved around, making coffee and tea, washing up with water heated on the stove, we started finding drafty places. Around each window. Where the water heater sits against the outside wall. Around the edges of the door. I got my assignment for the day: caulk.

Mike decided he needed something from the hardware store to keep working, so we made a trip down to Williams, AZ. The town was remarkably busy for the time of year. I think it’s because the Grand Canyon Rail Road is doing a special “Polar Express” to the Grand Canyon each day and that’s attracting a lot of families. The town also sets up a real Christmas tree on side street off Route 66 and blocks off the street so visitors can walk around it. Nice.

We took care of business in the True Value hardware store, buying about $90 worth of stuff that included a new front door mat and weather stripping. Then we hit Safeway for a few things, stopping at the Starbucks counter on the way out for mocha lattes.

By the time we got back to the mesa, before lunchtime, a lot of the snow had melted. Mike got back to work and Jack continued his vigil at the fire pit. Sometime during the day, he started barking at something — we looked out the window in time to see an antelope hopping away across the road. One of the open range cows also came by, but since we’d kept the gate closed, she didn’t get into our property. (Cows have done a lot of damage at our friends’ place on the other side of the mesa, making us very glad we fenced in our entire lot years ago.)

Soup and sandwiches for lunch. The shed temperature was in the low 60s while it remained in the 30s outside.

I went through a whole tube of caulk on the windows. The shed was built with window frames that they’d stuck standard sized windows into. Unfortunately, the frames were about 1/2 inch too wide and tall for the windows, leaving a gap on at least two sides. They’d finished the outside of the windows with trim, closing up the gaps a bit, but they were still drafty. And one window leaked. I’d fixed the leaky window during the summer but had never thought that the gaps might cause drafts in the window. So I went to work with the caulk gun, which I’m actually pretty good at using. I ran out of caulk before I’d finished all of the windows, but I’d closed up the worst of the gaps.

Mike, as part of his pipe insulation procedure, had sealed up around the water heater with Fiberglas and foam insulation. I used garage door weather striping around the front door. The door was made to fit the shed and it doesn’t fit quite right. You can see light through the cracks around the door. Even with the thick rubbery weather striping, you can still see light in a few places. But it’s a lot better than it was.

Mike finished up all the piping by sunset. Hooked up the water again, ran the pump, and pressurized the system. No leaks. He turned on the water heater. I washed dishes from lunch. He cleaned up. Then he was ready for a shower.

Unfortunately, he’d waited too long. The outside temperature had dropped and the hose, which had never fully defrosted from the night before, had thickened up with ice. The pump was unable to bring in enough water. His shower was very short-lived. He stepped out, cranky and miserable. I was just glad I’d let him go first.

Getting water from the tanks to our camping equipment had always been a problem in cold weather. In the spring of 2004, I’d moved up to Howard Mesa in our horse trailer with living quarters, which also had a pump to get water from the tanks to the inside plumbing. Unfortunately, during the night the hose would freeze and the pump would try in vain to get the water out. That would run down the trailer’s battery and burn up the pump. So I had to turn off the pump each night and use the trailer’s internal water storage system for water. Not a big deal. Once every few days, I’d fill the internal tank so there was always water there when I needed it.

But here at the shed, we don’t have internal water storage. All the water has to come from one of the big tanks. The closest one is about 40 feet away. Because this is not a permanent setup, we didn’t dig a trench and put in a pipe. We use a hose. And the hose freezes every night, even though we do our best to drain the water out of it.

At least it hasn’t cracked yet.

Anyway, we spent Saturday night much the same way as Friday night. A nice hot dinner and two episodes of 24 on my MacBook Pro’s wide screen. The shed was much warmer — it had gotten up to 71°F by late afternoon. I slept well, waking about an hour before dawn. Outside, the moonless sky was bright with stars.

This morning, the inside temperature was 57°; outside it was 31°. I like to think it was my excellent caulking and weather striping that kept the shed reasonably warm overnight.

Today, Christmas Eve, I’ll finish cleaning up the shed — didn’t get much done in the bathroom with Mike making such a mess in there. Then we’ll put up the Christmas lights. Later, when it gets warmer, we’ll go for a walk around our fence line, making repairs and looking for castoff elk antlers as we go. It’s beautifully clear outside — I can see for at least 50 miles in every direction — and, as I write this at 10 AM, its already nearly 40°. It’ll be nice to get out. And I’m sure Jack the Dog is looking forward to a good run. He’s been going nuts every time the coyotes start howling nearby.

This afternoon, after a nice hot shower (got my fingers crossed), we’re going up to the Grand Canyon to meet some friends for dinner at El Tovar. Then dessert at our friends’ house on the other side of the mesa.

I’m looking forward to driving back to our place tonight, to seeing those red Christmas lights all alone in the middle of nowhere.

[composed on top of a mesa in the middle of nowhere with ecto]

The Toyota Comes Home

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We revive my comatose Toyota and bring it home from Prescott.

In October, 1986, twenty years ago last month, I bought my second ever brand new car: a 1987 Toyota MR-2. It cost a whopping $15K, which in those days was above average for a new car, but not really considered “expensive.”

And what did I get for my money? A really fun, 2-seater sports car. Red, of course — it was my first red vehicle. It was also my first five-speed, and since I didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission in those days, I couldn’t even drive it home from the dealer.

Less than a week later, I was driving it to work in downtown Manhattan. One of the perks of my job with the City of New York, Office of the Comptroller, Bureau of Financial Audit was a free parking space near the Municipal Building, where I worked. I worked an 8 to 4 shift in an attempt to avoid rush-hour traffic. (New York’s rush hour is later in the day than Phoenix’s and doesn’t seem to last as long. I think good mass transit has something to do with that.) My big challenge in those early days of driving with a clutch and gearshift was the ramp from the Harlem River Drive up to the Cross Bronx Expressway and George Washington Bridge on my way home. The ramp was a steep climb and it was always backed up in the afternoon. If there’s one thing that’ll teach you how to drive a stick shift, it’s being forced to drive uphill in traffic.

Six months later, I was working in Redbank, NJ, for another company. The 60-mile (each way!) commute was only one of the reasons I hated that job. I found another one after just four months — I started looking after only two — and settled down to the last “9 to 5” job I’d ever have, at ADP’s corporate headquarters in Roseland, NJ. That was a 30-mile commute. Just right for the MR-2.

Years passed. I left that job and went freelance. I had a few questionable years. Then things started looking up. I had money and flexible time. But I kept the Toyota. Why not? It was a fun car to drive.

In 1995 (I think) I drove it across the country to Yarnell, AZ, which isn’t far from my current home in Wickenburg. It was loaded down with all the things I’d need for a winter as a snowbird — possibly the youngest snowbird in Arizona. I spent three months living and writing in Yarnell. I got to know Prescott and Wickenburg. And that winter, my Toyota had its first accident.

It happened right downtown in Wickenburg, right in front of St. Anthony’s Church on North Tegner. I was driving through town with Mike, who had come to visit for a week. We were on our way to Tucson to meet with his cousin Ricky. The person in front of me was making a left turn into Yavapai street. I was going straight. Unfortunately, a senior idiot from Pennsylvania, driving in the opposite direction, decided to make a left turn right in front of me. The road was covered with a thin layer of sand and when I hit the brakes, the car slid right into the corner of the guy’s bumper. The impact wasn’t hard — neither of us were going very fast — but it was enough to put a dent in the middle of the Toyota’s front bumper that made it look as if I’d hit a pole.

To say I was angry is an understatement.

Although the car was already almost 10 years old, the insurance company sprung for the repairs. Three weeks later, it was good as new. Actually, a little better. The air conditioning had started working again.

Before I went back to New Jersey at the end of that winter, I drove the Toyota out to California for a weekend. I took a picture of it at the beach on the Pacific ocean. From sea to shining sea. I’ve since lost that photo. After all, it was taken in the days before digital photography.

In those days, we called the Toyota “the mule” because I’d found a roof rack for it and, when it was installed, we could pack all kinds of stuff on it. I drove back to New Jersey by way of Florida — I was a speaker at a writer’s conference there. Mike came with me. Along the way, we camped out at Big Bend National Park and were nearly washed off the road by flooding in New Orleans.

Two years later, the Toyota and I made the drive again. This time, we were moving to Arizona, to an apartment I’d found in Wickenburg. I’d had enough of New Jersey’s cold, snowy winters. I wanted a new life in a warm place. Mike would leave his job (kind of; long story) and follow me five months later, in May, when our house was sold.

In 1999, I bought the red Jeep Wrangler I still drive around quite a bit these days. The Toyota began a life of leisure in the garage, pulled out for trips to Prescott or Phoenix. It was starting to look its age, but the paint was still bright and it still ran like a charm.

In 2000, I bought a helicopter. It was a two-seater. About a year later, when I started getting helicopter maintenance done in Prescott, I decided that it might be nice for the Toyota to live up there. Then, when I flew up, I’d have something to drive when I got there. Since I flew up at least once a month or so — not just for helicopter maintenance; we prefer shopping in Prescott to shopping in the Phoenix area — the car was driven quite regularly.

Meanwhile, at home, I missed the Toyota. The Jeep might be fun on dirt roads, but it’s miserable on highways. The Toyota is fun on all kinds of paved roads.

In June 2003, I bought a Honda S2000. So now I had a Jeep for dirt roads and around town driving and a sports car for paved roads and road trips. I vowed to never let the Toyota know I’d bought the Honda. I didn’t want it to get jealous.

One time, we got to Prescott to do a little shopping and found the Toyota’s battery just about dead. Mike gave it a push down a hill while I rode inside, gathering speed. I dropped the clutch and the car came to life. We drove it to Sears and bought it a new battery — its third in about 15 years.

In 2004, I got a summer job with Papillon at the Grand Canyon. I lived in a trailer on our property at Howard Mesa. The Toyota became my spare car up there, spending time either at Grand Canyon Airport or Howard Mesa or taking me from one point to the other. It shared this duty with my Jeep. So yes, I had two cars and a helicopter with me that summer. What good is an asset if you don’t use it?

At the end of that season, the Toyota went back to Prescott, where it stayed until it needed an oil pan replacement, which I wrote about in another blog entry. I was flying up there less and less. I’d sold my little helicopter and bought a bigger one. It was brand new and didn’t need much maintenance, especially since Ed Taylor, Wickenburg’s excellent aircraft mechanic, had gone to the Robinson Factory Maintenance Course and was authorized to do maintenance and repairs. He did all my engine-related work — oil changes, fuel reorientation SB, etc. — while the Prescott folks handled the helicopter-specific stuff (rotor blades, gear box, etc) and 100-hour and annual inspections.

Earlier this year, I switched helicopter mechanics. I now take my helicopter down to Williams Gateway airport in Mesa for work. I flew into Prescott less and less. I realized that it was kind of silly to keep a car there.

A few weeks ago, on our return trip from a weekend in Sedona, we decided to stop by the airport and pick up the car. We found it looking sad and feeling comatose. Even a push start wouldn’t get it running. We towed it back to a parking space and went home.

Yesterday, we drove up to retrieve it, bringing along jumper cables and tools. It started right up with a jump from Mike’s Honda, but there wasn’t enough juice in the battery to keep the engine running when it was at idle or when switching gears at low speed. (It still has its original clutch, which is really starting to show its age, so it’s a bit tricky to drive.) After two attempts to get it out of the parking lot, we decided to park it, remove the battery, buy a new battery at Sears, and put it in ourselves. (We do have AAA, but we needed the car towed to Sears sometime within our lifetimes and AAA seems to have a problem with fast service when it comes to towing.)

At Sears, the guy who tested the battery said it was the second deadest he’d ever tested. (How he made that conclusion is beyond me, since his meter didn’t read a thing when connected to the terminals.) We discovered that the old battery was only 3 years old, so I got a new one at a discount. We bought some other stuff at Sears, had sashimi for lunch in a nearby Japanese restaurant, hit Office Max for a computer cable and Petco for dog vitamins, visited Old Navy for some winter shirts, and then spent an hour (and almost $300!) at Costco. At 4 PM, we returned to the Toyota, which was waiting patiently, looking more faded and forlorn than ever. Mike installed the battery and I hopped in behind the wheel. I stepped on the clutch pedal, turned the key, and the car roared to life. “Let’s go!” it was saying.

Sounded good to me. After manually cleaning the dusty windshield — the wipers have dry rot and need replacement — we headed home. You know, I had that little sucker up to 80 mph? Wasn’t meaning to, of course, and was pretty surprised to see that speedometer needle in the straight-up position.

Mike followed me, just in case the car decided to lose a wheel or collapse on the way home. No problems, though.

I stopped at Safeway to pick up some groceries on my way home. When I pulled into the parking lot, people looked at me as if I were driving some kind of junker. Little did they know.

The Toyota is home now, in one of Mike’s parking spaces on the driveway apron. For the first time in a long time, all six of our vehicles (including his 1986 Mustang Convertible, which, in my opinion, looks worse than the Toyota) are in the same place at the same time. My Honda is in the garage, of course. We toyed with the idea of bringing the Toyota to live in my hangar at the airport, but I think I’d rather keep it home, at least for a while. I’m going to drive it today. I’ll get it an oil change and a little check up at Dan’s place. (The Toyota loves Dan.) I’ll bring it by the airport to wash it. I’ll pull out the Zymol and see if it can make what’s left of the paint shine again.

And then, when I’m finished playing with it and convincing it that I still love it, I’ll take it down to the Phoenix area and probably park it at Deer Valley airport, or perhaps Scottsdale, if I can find free long-term parking. These days, I seem to fly more in the Phoenix area than around Wickenburg anyway. It would be nice to take care of some errands while I was down there.

Oh, and for the record, the Toyota has a book value of about $250 these days. It costs about $400/year to insure. (No, I don’t have collision coverage on it.) It’s hard to sell a nearly worthless asset when it’s so cheap to keep.

Podcast Stuff

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Maria Speaks Episode 31: Podcast Stuff.

This episode marks my return to Maria Speaks after a two-month break. It covers my change in podcasting technique, a new video podcast I just created for Flying M Air, and the podcasts I subscribe to.

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Maria Langer. Welcome to Episode 31 of Maria Speaks: Podcast Stuff.

I just spent the past three hours redoing the Maria Speaks podcast. I used to publish it with Blogger and FeedBurner. Now, since my personal Web site is blog-based using WordPress, I cut Blogger out of the picture. It took me three hours to create or modify blog entries to embed my thirty existing podcast entries on this site. Well, twenty-nine. One of them covered an eBook I no longer distribute, so it didn’t link to it.

I developed this new method of podcasting — new to me, I should say — to reduce the amount of work required to publish a podcast and keep all podcast information together. I used to use a WordPress plugin called podPress, but I removed all references to it and disabled it today. Keep it simple — that’s what I decided. And the technique I worked out is relatively simple, utilizing an existing WordPress blog and FeedBurner. I wrote about it in an article to be published soon by Informit.com. When it comes out, I’ll link to it on the Aritcles page of my Web site and create a podcast based on its content.

For some reason, my “Maria Speaks” podcast has more subscribers than ever. That makes me wonder, since I haven’t released a podcast episode since September, and that episode was a bit more commercial than I like. This time last year, I was releasing one or two episodes per week. I ran out of steam last December and have been releasing them far less frequently. Still, my subscriber numbers have been climbing steadily. It doesn’t make sense to me, but it did convince me to release more content. The way I see it, when all these new subscribers start getting the new content, they’ll either like it and stick around or not like it and leave.

In the meantime, I started a new video podcast in October for my helicopter charter company, Flying M Air. I have literally thousands of photographs taken throughout the southwest, in places I fly to. I also have photos taken by my husband and by professional photographer and Bigfoot Hunter, Richard Noll.

Rick accompanied me on a test run of Flying M Air’s Southwest Circle Helicopter Adventure. The deal we struck was that in return for all all-expense paid trip, he’d let me share copyright on all the video and still images he took. While he has the ability to sell these images as stock photos or use them in other projects, I have the ability to use them in marketing material to help sell the excursions and in articles I plan to write for publication about the trip. It was a win-win deal. Richard took lots of pictures from the air, which is something I simply can’t do while I’m flying. He also took video images with something a few clicks better than the little Canon digital video cameras I have. I’m still going through the over 1,000 still images and 3 to 4 hours of video he left on my MacBook Pro’s hard disk before departing back to the Seattle area.

I decided to turn my library of photos into video brochures for Flying M Air’s tours, charters, and excursions. The result is “Come Fly With Us!” (subscribe), which currently has three episodes. Another episode will be released Monday. (That’s one of the good things about my new podcast publishing technique; I can schedule a publication date and time. This makes it possible to record several podcast episodes at once and release them periodically over time.)

Part of the learning experience for creating this new podcast was finding legal music to play while the images were showing. I wasted a lot of time looking. Some sites promoting “royalty-free” music for podcasts required that you buy the songs to use them. That wouldn’t have been so bad if the songs were sold at iTunes prices or even a few bucks, but they were asking for $25 or $39 dollars per song. I use each song on just one video podcast episode and plan to release new titles once a week until I run out of material. That music was simply over my budget.

The much hyped GarageBand.com promised royalty-free, free downloads music. But the vast majority of artists didn’t allow free downloads of their songs. And since I was looking for relatively mellow instrumentals — you know, mood music — I had trouble finding what I wanted there in the first place.

I finally wound up on MagnaTune.com. I heard about it during an interview with the site’s founder, John Buckman, that Miraz had referred me to. MagnaTune predates iTunes by about two weeks. Although it has a limited number of artists on board, it offers very reasonable licensing of its music for podcast use. I’ve been getting tunes for my “Come Fly with Us!” podcasts from MagnaTunes since then and giving credit to the artists at the end of each video. I hope they sell some music.

Speaking of music, if you’ve been listening to Maria Speaks for a while now, you may have noticed that I changed the “theme song” for this podcast. The reason: I had a one-year licensing agreement with FreePlay Music for the old tune, Floater. Last year, when I bought that license, it cost $25/year, which I thought was reasonable. When I went to renew, the price had gone up to $100/year. I guess they decided to cash in when podcasting took off. That’s above my budget for a free podcast that doesn’t even earn any advertising revenue, so I decided to find a new tune. The new tune is is a segment from a nameless bit that I got off a public domain music CD I acquired back in 1996. I spent about an hour yesterday going through the one thousand plus songs on that CD set to pick this one. I’m not sure how much I really like it, but I do need something for my opening and closing credits.

The main topic of this podcast episode was supposed to be a quick discussion of some of the podcasts I listen to regularly. So let me dive into that for a few minutes.

I want to start off by telling you what I don’t listen to. I don’t like podcasts that mix discussion and “Garage Band” music. For example, I used to listen to a podcast about words hosted by two guys who seemed to guess more about word origins than actually research them. They’d pick few words or phrases and do a 40-minute podcast about them. The way they’d stretch out that podcast is by inserting a few Garage Band songs into it. Trouble was, their taste in music was nothing like mine, so I found myself having to fast forward through the music filler to get to the discussion meat. Fast forwarding is not always easy when you’re listening on an iPod and driving in traffic. When I realized that the content I was interested in wasn’t that good to begin with, I dropped the podcast. Ditto for the writing podcast some woman was doing. I wasn’t listening to hear music. I was listening to hear content. If the content was music related, the music would make sense. But it wasn’t and it didn’t.

In general, I don’t listen to music podcasts at all. Finding new music is low on my priority list. So if you you think you might find some tips for new and exciting music podcasts here, you will be disappointed.

What I do like listening to is podcasts that can enlighten me, teach me new things, or make me laugh with intelligent humor. I listen to podcasts primarily when I’m driving or flying, although I do have a i-Fusion speaker thing that makes it easy to listen when I’m working in the kitchen, making dinner or tidying up. So if I can be trapped in a place doing a relatively mindless thing and listen to something that’ll expand my horizons or make me laugh, I’m pretty happy.

That said, here’s a brief summary of some of the podcasts I listen to. You can find links to these podcasts on the transcript for this podcast. Go to www.aneclecticmind.com and click the Podcast link in the navigation bar to find it.

First on the list are a handful National Public Radio (or NPR) podcasts. There are 355 of these podcasts and I’ve tried at least 20 of them. I listen to five of them regularly.

  • NPR: Story of the Day is a daily selection of a story from NPR’s programming. These stories are wide-ranging in topics: business, war, travel, entertainment — you name it.
  • NPR: Business Story of the Day is a daily selection of a business story from NPR’s programming. Stories cover anything business related, from Silicon Valley news bits to global oil production information and lots of stuff in between. It keeps me informed about the business world.
  • NPR: Satire from the Unger Report is a weekly podcast of satire by Brian Unger. It’ll make you laugh — and think.
  • NPR: Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! is a weekly radio quiz show about the news. It has a panel of three celebrities (no, not the kind in People magazine) and call-in contestants. The questions and answers lean toward the comical, so the show is extremely entertaining.
  • NPR: Sunday Puzzle is a weekly podcast of word games with an NPR host, Will Shortz (of the New York Times), and a telephone contestant.

I’ve tried other NPR podcasts, but eventually lost interest in them. And as I prepared this list, I noticed a bunch of new ones to try out. So I might report on some additional podcasts from NPR in the future.

I also listen to American Public Media (APM) Future Tense. It’s a great podcast with short episodes about technology topics.

I listen to three PBS podcasts:

  • American Experience is a podcast with short episodes about historical topics. Recent episodes included the Gold Rush and New York.
  • NOVA is a podcast of brief stories from the NOVA science television show.
  • NOW is a podcast of rather lengthy stories form the NOW news television show. Sometimes the stories interest me and I listen to them. Other times, the stories don’t interest me and I just delete them.

I also watch a NOVA video podcast, which I find excellent. It combines science information with video and still images in a 2 to 3 minute podcast. I like some episodes so much that I save them as movies on my iPod so I can show them to others.

Speaking of video podcasts, I also subscribe to a number of others:

  • GARY-PAUL TV is a video podcast of weird stuff published by Gary-Paul Prince of Peachpit Press. My favorite episode, which I’ve saved as a movie for future viewing, is “Drinking and Driving Texas Style.”
  • Comedy Central: Stand-Up is a video podcast of stand up comedy segments. I only like about half of these, but the ones I like arae really good, so I keep checking in.
  • National Geographic Video Shorts are short video segments from National Geographic television shows.

I also used to enjoy a video podcast called CockpitCast, which showed video out the front window of various commuter jets as they landed at airports in western U.S. cities, but there hasn’t been a new release in a long time, so I don’t know if the pilots are still doing it.

Another aviation podcast I enjoy is Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase. Betty is a flight attendant who loves to travel. She brings along her tape recorded and gets stories from other flight attendants, pilots, and people at the places she flies to. The stories are great but the audio quality is pretty bad sometimes. Still, I think it’s worth a listen. My favorite story? The one where a passenger who died of natural causes during a flight was not declared dead until after the flight was more than halfway to its destination.

For tech news and info, I’ve been trying two Wired magazine podcasts:

  • Wired Magazine is a podcast of short pieces from Wired magazine columns.
  • Wired News is a podcast of short news stories from Wired magazine.

I also subscribe to Slate magazine‘s Daily podcast, which includes interviews about Slate’s online pieces as well as audio versions of some of Slate’s online pieces. It gives me a chance to “read” Slate without having to visit the site. Of course, I only get a small portion of the thoughtful gems available online. I used to subscribe to Slate’s Explainer podcast, but have given it up because the topics weren’t all that interesting to me. You might like them, though, so check them and out see for yourself.

I subscribe to the WordPress podcast because of my interest in WordPress software. I admit that I’ve downloaded all episodes and have listened to just three of them. I think the podcast is good, but I have to be in the right frame of mind to listen to them.

The same goes for the Podcasting Underground podcast. Good, informative stuff, but I have to be in the mood to listen to information about podcasting.

For politics, I listen to a pair of real left-wingers. Sorry, but I am not a conservative at all, neo or otherwise.

  • Real Time with Bill Maher is an hour-long podcast of Maher’s HBO television series. He does an interview and then discusses one or more current political topics with a panel of three that usually includes one celebrity entertainer and one political figure. His panels always include someone sitting on the right, so both sides are represented. While I don’t agree with everything I hear, I like to hear the various viewpoints on current political topics. New Rules is a much shorter podcast that includes just the New Rules he lists at the end of his show.
  • MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a collection of Olbermann segments from his MSNBC Countdown television show. Olbermann is a Bush basher — do doubt about it — and it amazes me that he says some of the things he says. It’s a real example of the First Amendment in action — if Olbermann said these kinds of things just once in a place like North Korea or Iran or Iraq under Saddam Hussein, he would have been shot dead for treason. But in our country, we’re allowed to voice all kinds of opinions. Olbermann’s aren’t the kind that’ll ever get on Fox News. My favorite bit? The count of times our president said “Stay the course” after Tony Snow told the press he’d only said it eight times. Classic reporting.

I also started listening to Penn Jillette’s weekday radio show on FreeFM, PennRadio. Penn Jillette is the big, fast-talking guy from the magic duo of Penn and Teller. An atheist (his Nevada license plate is the word “ATHEIST”) and libertarian, he definitely has some non-standard views of politics. But he also covers non-political topics. I don’t enjoy all of Penn’s podcast episodes — I probably delete about half of them without listening to more than a few minutes — but I like enough of them to keep my subscription. One of my favorite episodes was his interview of Phyllis Diller (who I didn’t even know was still alive). Ms. Diller had some fascinating stories to tell and I was especially touched by Penn’s patience when her memory failed her more than once during the interview.

And finally, one of the first podcasts I ever subscribed to, podictionary. This daily podcast, with 2 to 5 minute episodes, discusses the origin of a word or phrase. A weekly digest version is also available. Many, many thanks to Charles Hodgson for his dedication to the subject of word history.

Now you know what I’m listening to. What are you listening to? Share your comments and suggestions with me and other listeners by posting your comments on the transcript for this episode. Go to www.aneclecticmind.com, click the Podcasts link in the navigation bar, and scroll down until you find the “Episode 31: Podcast Stuff” entry. Or just use the Search box to search for the number 31. Then use the Comments link at the bottom of the entry to read other people’s comments and add your own.

And as always, thanks for listening. More later.

High Bridge Water Tower

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In Upper Manhattan, NY.

I didn’t have much information about the subject of this photo until I did a little research on the Web, but it was a part of my life for more than 20 years.

High Bridge Water TowerThe stone tower, which dates back to the 1870s, stands near the top of a hill in upper Manhattan, in area that’s part of Washington Heights. It overlooks the Harlem River and, from its roof, it’s likely that you can see a good part of the Bronx, Queens, the Long Island Sound, and Long Island beyond. Anyone driving on the Cross Bronx Expressway between the George Washington Bridge and either the Throgs Neck or Whitestone Bridges will see it as they leave or enter Manhattan. Nearby is what remains of High Bridge, the oldest bridge in New York.

The tower became part of my life in 1977 when my family moved from New Jersey to Suffolk County in Long Island. Most of the rest of our family lived in New Jersey and we passed the tower each time we went west to visit them. Back in those days, it had a different, less impressive roof. I seem to recall that it wasn’t in the best condition. Then, on one trip, I noticed that the roof was gone. In 1984, vandals set fire to the building and the roof had burned. The stone tower remained.

For years, it stood roofless in the spot. A sad reminder of what upper Manhattan had been and what it had become.

Later, in the late 1980s, I drove by and was pleased to see that a new roof had been put on the building. The building looked wonderful — cleaner (had New York dirt been sandblasted off its stone?) and almost new. It remains in that condition today.

I took this photo in 2004, on a trip to New York to visit some family members, as I was riding as a passenger over the Alexander Hamilton Bridge.

Return of the Jeep

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I bring my Jeep back from Howard Mesa.

On Saturday, Mike and I drove up to Howard Mesa to take care of “winterizing” our shed and property. That included things like spraying down the little building with Thompson’s Water Seal, covering the valves on our two water tanks with foam insulator cups, and securing loose items.

We were going to fly up, but for some reason, Mike wanted to drive. So we made several stops along the way in Prescott: the excellent True Value hardware store near the hospital, the Secondhand Man Furniture Shop, and an antique store near Courthouse Square. We almost bought a table and a drop-front desk (or secretary, as they’re sometimes called) but decided that the table was too big and the desk was too rickety. Then we got back on the road and, after stopping at Safeway in Chino Valley for fuel and KFC in Chino Valley for lunch on the go, we finally made it to Howard Mesa by about noon.

We did our chores. It took about two hours. I used Trade-a-Plane sheets to cover the windows of the shed and it’s a good thing I did — Mike has very little precision with the sprayer. He sprayed and I brushed the wet spots — mostly the building’s trim and “shutters.” Then we did our wooden bench and picnic table. Then we did the building again. We went through two gallons of Thompson’s. It was certainly worth the effort. The building will be protected for up to two years (although we’ll probably do this annually anyway) and, hopefully, it won’t turn black like the picnic table is.

Afterwards, we called our friends Elizabeth and Matt, who live full-time on the other side of the mesa. They were home so we decided to visit for a while on our way back home.

My JeepMy Jeep was at Howard Mesa — it had been there for about two months — and I wanted to bring it home. I’d been driving my little Honda S2000 for the whole time it was gone and the poor car was tired of eroded dirt roads and dust. And I was tired of washing it. Besides, as fun as the Honda is to drive, it’s not terribly practical for life in Wickenburg. I’d bought it for road trips and driving down to Phoenix — not for picking up feed for the horses and grocery shopping. And that’s what I’d been doing. (Do you know you can fit three 50-lb bags of horse and chicken feed in the trunk of a Honda S2000?)

So I loaded the garbage into the Jeep and let Mike take Jack the Dog in his truck. (He also took a very tall ladder that I’ll be using at the airport during my preflight to get just a little closer to my rotor hub.) We drove to Elizabeth and Matt’s place. We took what we call the Tank Road — a two-track that winds through state land from a big metal water tank to the edge of Elizabeth’s and Matt’s property. It’s a mile shorter that way, but the road is pretty rough. Didn’t stop me from bouncing along in the Jeep. I figured that the Jeep had had enough rest and it was time to get back to work.

We had a nice visit, then hit the road again in our two separate vehicles. I led the way. And that’s when I started to remember why I’d bought the S2000 in the first place.

On paved roads, the Jeep rides like crap.

First of all, the Jeep’s 6-cylinder, 4-liter engine cannot compare to the 4-cylinder, 2 liter engine in my Honda. The Jeep has terrible acceleration and could barely reach the speed limit on Route 64 (65 mph), I-40 (75 mph), or 89 (65 mph). My driver’s license would be safe: Speeding wasn’t much of an option. The whole thing shakes and rattles, feeling very unstable at any speed over 55. The Honda, on the other hand, feels rock solid and stable at any speed — and I’ve tried a bunch of them.

And the Jeep’s brakes — well they suck. I’m going to get them checked. They really can’t be that bad by design. The first time I used them at a stop sign, I nearly coasted right through the intersection.

Noise was a big issue. Although I had my iPod plugged into the stereo system with one of those cassette do-dads, I couldn’t get the volume loud enough to hear the podcasts I was trying to listen to. I had to resort to my ear buds, which are designed more like ear plugs than the standard iPod buds. That actually sounded good and cut out all the road noise.

You might say, well if you hate the Jeep so much, why don’t you just get rid of it?

First of all, I never said I hated the Jeep. I actually kind of like it. You know, the way you might like a stray dog who knows how to catch Frisbees. It can do a cool thing — drive just about anywhere my Honda can’t — and it really isn’t either troublesome or costly to gas up and insure. I hardly ever wash it — Jeeps are supposed to be dirty — and it does start right up every time I turn the key. And it is the perfect vehicle for driving around town in Wickenburg. After all, I have to cover nearly a mile of dirt road just to get to the supermarket from my house.

But I really don’t like driving it long distances on paved roads.

Especially after driving the Honda nearly every day for the past six or so weeks.

We stopped at the Iron Springs Cafe in Prescott on our way home. I wish Wickenburg had a little restaurant like that. The March Hare comes close — but it’s only open for dinner one day a week and you need reservations by noon the previous day, which is not always convenient. Good, interesting food, great taste combinations. But the Iron Springs Cafe is filled with trendy baby-boomers and young people, rather than retirees.

From there, I followed Mike home. I had a hard time keeping up with him on Iron Springs Road. The sun had set while we were in the restaurant and the sky glowed with that post-sunset color — red, orange, violet. The air was clear. I had my window open — mostly because I had a half full, open bottle of fuel injector cleaner wedged in beside my seat (long story) and the smell of it was screwing up my sinuses. (I think if I had the windows closed, I probably would have been asphyxiated.) The air was cool enough to have the heat on in the Jeep. We passed by the Kirkland Steakhouse, which was really hopping and had a bunch of antique cars parked out front, then made our way through Kirkland Junction, Peeples Valley, and Yarnell. We got behind a slow pickup truck going down Yarnell hill and I smelled his brakes burning until I managed to pass him where it opens up to two lanes. (Some people just don’t understand how to use a lower gear.) A while later we were home. I had to leave the Jeep in the middle of the driveway because Mike had been encroaching on the Jeep’s parking spot with his Honda Accord and there simply wasn’t enough room to park.

I washed the Jeep at the airport on Sunday morning. I had to do it twice. It was really dirty — too dirty for even a Jeep. There’s still some mud on the asphalt just outside the hangar door.

I took the Jeep to work with me today. I would have taken Jack the Dog, but he made himself scarce when it was time to go so he missed out. It was nice to bounce along the dirt road as I left our house. No worries about erosion or rocks.

The Honda gets a rest now. It deserves it.