Installing Java on a MacBook Air

I had not used a Macintosh for over 15 years.  The first of several Macs I’ve owned over the years was a Macintosh 128k I bought in 1984 – about three months after its introduction in the now-famous SuperBowl ad. At the end of the last century, work forced me to migrate to Windows World…

Over time, as Windows improved (despite some dogs), I decided that it was a pretty good system and largely ignored what Apple was doing. Then, a couple of years ago – with a different employer – I was provided an iPhone, an iPad, and asked if I would prefer a Mac or Windows notebook. It was suggested that I might like the Mac. Being forced to use the other Apple products, and intrigued with Apple products’ legendary interoperability, I opted for the MacBook Air 13”.

At a trade show two weeks later, I was still learning the differences between Windows and the Mac OS.  Taking a break from working the booth we were manning, I set up my MacBook on a table in the café area to make some expense report entries. The show was a little slow at the moment, so one of my co-workers in the booth decided to get something for them to drink. Passing by my table, he asked if I wanted anything.  I drink a lot of coffee, so I decided that a cup sounded good.

As I was working on the report, he came back and sat down for a minute, handing me my coffee.  As we talked, I added some cream and sugar to the drink and put the lid back on the cup.  He headed back to the booth and I continued with the report.

I reached for the cup of coffee. Having been around computers and coffee for over 30 years, I made it a point to not pass the cup over the Mac. In all of those years, I had never spilled a drink onto a keyboard and wasn’t going to now! I got the cup past the Mac, past the edge of the table, and over my lap, where I apparently squeezed the sides a little because the lid popped off.  Without the structural strength lent by lid, the cup started to slip, causing me to react by squeezing it tighter to prevent a McDonald’s-like moment of hot coffee in my lap.

Success! I didn’t spill a single drop on me!

Unfortunately, the triumph was short-lived because the extra squeeze squirted the coffee back toward the table…and onto the keyboard.

I shut down the Mac, dried it with napkins, and turned it on its side to let the liquid drain out.  When I rebooted the Mac later, it worked just fine – for a while.  It went in for repairs later that day – after some keys started sticking.  It now has a thin, flexible, water-proof keyboard skin.

While I successfully installed Java on my Mac, I would suggest finding a better way – and don’t use cream and sugar. But to this day, when I lift the screen, and the smell of coffee wafts upward, I crave a cup…

Take Heed, Father’s Day Approacheth!

As World War II was drawing to a close, he joined the Army Air Corps.  The war ended and he never went to the conflict.

He was born in Flippin (in north central Arkansas) in 1928 – the youngest of six children.  His father was a talented barrel-maker.  I’d never thought too much about what is involved with making wooden barrels, but apparently, to be good, you had to be quite a craftsman!  As the Great Depression deepened, it was not a particularly good time to be growing up in America.  Raising a family there, under those circumstances, must have been very difficult for his father because they moved to Van Buren, Arkansas – just across the river from Fort Smith.  If things were rough then, they were about to get worse.  While he attended high school, the war raged in Europe and the Pacific.  One brother joined the Army and was an artilleryman in Europe.  This was the time of what has been hailed as the “Greatest Generation.”  A time of economic struggle, a time of sacrifice and deprivation, a time of war…

Yet, it was also a time of perseverance, victory, and, for the family and the nation…survival.

The family all survived those difficult times, but I never really knew my grandfather, the barrel-maker.  There is a faded photo of me, as a baby, being held in his arms, but it wasn’t long afterward that he passed away.  I may not have known him, but I did know my Dad.

After the war, the Air Corps split from the Army to become the U.S. Air Force.  He was in Korea, when that conflict began, but the Air Force yanked him out, and again, he avoided being embroiled in it.  He came home for a time and married, and I was born a little over nine months later at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.  We moved frequently with his assignments.  By age 13, I had lived in Europe half again as much as the U.S.

Dad worked hard to insure a close family relationship.  I never knew exactly what he did for the Air Force, but I do know he was TDY (temporary duty) all over the world – a lot!  He couldn’t discuss what he did, so when we were together, only the social side of his work came up.  His choices strongly influenced my life and I got to see things and visit places most people never even dream of.  He retired, having also missed the Vietnam conflict.  His timing was impeccable!

I don’t know his exact IQ, but I know it was very high and he always challenged me to think deeply and clearly.  He was a wonderful role model and gave me a great start in life! One of my greatest regrets is that while I now have three daughters, two sons-in-law, and three grandchildren, they have no memories of him.  Only my oldest daughter has a photo of Dad holding her as a baby.  Less than a year later, at the age of 53, he was gone…

As Father’s Day approaches, whatever your relationship, reach out to your father or vice versa.  I wish I still could!

This just sounded so familiar…

Back in Austin, Texas for the first time in a while.  We lived here a number of years ago and it is good to be back just to see the sights again and go by our favorite “haunts.”  One of them – the Congress Avenue bridge and the area around it is amazing!

First, if you are willing to brave the rather busy traffic and step out into the middle of the road (NOT recommended!) and look north, you are greeted with a great photo op of the Texas Capitol building!  It is actually taller than the U.S. Capitol, but it seems, contrary to popular belief (especially in the Lone Star state), it is not the tallest capitol building in the U.S. – that honor apparently goes to Louisiana.

Then, at dusk, if you stand near the south end of the bridge on the east side by the river bank, you will witness the emergence of the bats that live under the bridge as they swarm out to fill their tiny stomachs by reducing the insect population.  That colony of bats is estimated to consist of up to 1.5 million critters – they eat a LOT of bugs!

On this particular occasion, following the bat-watching exercise, we journeyed to the north side of Austin to Applebee’s in Cedar Park.  Sitting in the restaurant late Sunday evening with some of my family, and having finished some excellent salads, we were just relaxing and talking about things in general.  The music being piped in was an old favorite (although I never cared for the sentiments expressed) – “American Woman”… I was enjoying listening to it when my son-in-law quietly commented on some of the conversation between two young guys sitting in the booth behind them.

They were apparently talking about a number of things, and as I strained my ears, I was pretty sure I heard them discussing what band recorded “American Woman.”  One was pretty sure it was Ratt and some conversation that I couldn’t hear/understand ensued.  A couple of minutes later, as we were standing up to leave, I heard one of them say he thought it might be REO Speedwagon.  Being an eavesdropper, and a nosy one at that, as I passed by their table, I asked, “Are y’all talking about who recorded the song that’s playing?”

“Yeah.”

Trying to be helpful, I just told them the name of the band.  It took an unexpected turn…

“Guess Who”

“That’s what we’re trying to do…”  Just a slight touch of irritation there…

“No, no…that’s the name of the band…Guess Who.”

“Oh, right…that’s right, I thought it was from one of those one-hit wonder groups like that…”

“Actually, Guess Who was a well-known band that had a lot of hits back in the 70’s.”

“Really?”

“Yeah…”

It was all I could do to only smile as we wished them a good evening and exited the restaurant…

To quote the great Yogi Berra, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”  (See my post dated May 11, 2016, “New is Old? Old is New?”

Texas Panhandle

A recent trip to Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle, brought back memories of younger days. My wife and I met and married there – and one of our daughters was born there.  It is a great town…city…but often overlooked as people pass through on I-40 heading east or west, and to a lesser extent, I-27 as people go north or south.  It is usually seen as a good stopping point to spend the night because the next larger cities are 100 miles south, 280 miles west, 240 miles east, or 360 miles north.  Not enough people pause long enough to explore the area.

For those unfamiliar with the term or the geographical region, the Texas Panhandle is the northern rectangle of the state that consists of 26 counties bordered by the states of Oklahoma and New Mexico.  (Not to be confused with the country of Mexico that borders the southern edge of Texas.)

About twenty miles south of Amarillo is the Palo Duro Canyon.  Seventy miles long, averaging about six miles wide, and up to 1,000 feet deep, it is second only to the Grand Canyon!  In the canyon itself are a number of things to see and do – camping, hiking, horseback riding, and a musical drama called “Texas” which is performed in a beautiful amphitheater with a backdrop of a section of the canyon wall.  The entire cast are amateurs but they are very good!  It is an entertaining play – well worth the time, effort and cost to see.

But it is the canyon itself, combined with the indigenous fauna, that is the real draw.  The rocks vary from the normal sandy-colored dirt of the Panhandle at the very top and the off-white of the Ogallala aquifer just below, to the iron-oxide rich red claystone near the bottom.  In between, varying rock layers elicit streaks of white, gray, yellow and even lavender.  One of the prominent features in the canyon is the formation named the “Lighthouse”.  I have hiked up to the base of the Lighthouse…if you want to call it a hike.  It is actually a nice walk across fairly even terrain.  You can choose to observe it from your car and it is still impressive, but either way, never more impressive than with a typical Panhandle sunset.

Panhandle sunsets are often spectacular.  The sky, with no mountains and few other obstructions, stretches from horizon to horizon. Add a few clouds and as the sun retreats from view, the colors are amazing!  Bright gold in the west, with patches of orange shading gradually darker as your gaze traverses toward the east.  All on a background of blue darkening to indigo as time slips away…but in the canyon…

The last rays of the sun seem to ignite a beacon in the Lighthouse and along the rim of the canyon where the Ogallala lies.  The bright rust-red rock below the rim begins its daily journey to darker hues, passing through ruby to wine and ultimately to a dark, dark mahogany as another day draws to a close and it is time to rest and restore your soul for the morrow.

I Can See Clearly Now…

If you wear any type of corrective lens, you know the difficulties and irritations that come with them.  Things like always cleaning your glasses because they are fogged, oily, and/or fingerprinted.  Contacts also need attention…cleaning…replacing…plus, you have to periodically stick them onto your eyeball and later peel them off.  Not to mention that they sometimes get dislodged or actually become an irritant in the wind, dust, or some air conditioning!  Yet, in spite of the shortcomings, you become dependent upon these vision aids because you can’t see without them, or at least, not clearly.  I hate the fact that when I first wake up and look at the clock, I can’t read it!  So, first things first, I put on my glasses.  But shaving is much more easily accomplished wearing my contacts, because I can see all of my face in the mirror – as frightening a prospect as that is…just ask the people who know me!

My wife’s parents had graduated to wearing glasses by the time I first met them.  I had not attained such a lofty status at that point.  (Well, I had, but my eyes were young and flexible enough that they could compensate without external assistance.)

Years after I married into their family, Clarence retired from preaching.  A couple of years before calling it quits – after 50 years of preaching – he suddenly developed a vision problem.  I can relate.  When I was finally forced into bifocal lenses, it literally happened within an afternoon.  I was hand-writing a letter and laid it down.  When I picked it up an hour later, I could barely read what I had written!  The next day was better, but my sharp eyesight never fully returned.

Clarence felt that being a pastor required extensive reading, so his ability to see clearly was critical.  Not only did he have to study and prepare sermons, but he also needed to read his notes at a glance while delivering them from the pulpit!  On this day, all was well…until he started to preach.  He glanced at his notes and realized he couldn’t read them!  With 47+ years of experience, he hesitated only momentarily, offered a quick, silent prayer, and relied on his memory to get through the sermon.  Success!  No one realized his dilemma!

After church and lunch, while watching a televised football game, Clarence decided he could actually see better without his glasses!  As he was telling Nita about it, she remarked that she was also having some difficulty seeing because her eyes were tired.  After a bit, she decided to clean her glasses to see if that would help.  While cleaning them, she noticed a problem with a lens – it looked like a crack or scratch.  Then she realized it was the line for bifocals.  She didn’t wear bifocals!  They exchanged their similarly-styled glasses and all the world was once again in sharp focus…

There is a moral here…As you grow older and begin to physically resemble your spouse, don’t buy glasses frames that are similar, no matter how much you like the way they look on them!

Puppy Love

It is so easy to love a young puppy!  They are so full of energy, so cute, so cuddly, so…whatever else endears them to us.  They are also so messy and so destructive, but that’s the other side of the coin.  And then they grow up…

The recent storms here in North Texas have been loud and wet.  I have never had the respect for such storms as I should – doing dumb things like stand in the middle of the street taking photos of a tornado a couple of blocks away.  (A topic for another time.)  Most people and animals have a healthy respect for such weather and are not as foolhardy as I have sometimes been.  But as I grow older, I have now seen enough that I’m beginning to realize that those things can be dangerous!  I never said I was very bright – unlike our German Shepherd.

We bought Shadow when he was ten weeks old.  He was the last of the litter and we got a good deal – papers and all.  He is our second German Shepherd and a big, beautiful, intelligent dog.  After weaning, he was living in a nice shed on the country property of the breeder.  He had free rein to come and go and explore the large fenced-in property – and he had house-broken himself in the process.  But he also was somewhat afraid of thunder and lightning.

Shadow’s fear of storms ameliorated as he grew to 124 pounds of solid muscle.  Not a puppy anymore!  At 12 years, he is now the equivalent of an 84-year-old man.  His hearing and visual acuity have diminished somewhat the last year or so.  That may explain why he now has a propensity to bark incessantly at times.  Then there is that common Shepherd problem – hip dysplasia.  It is obviously painful for him to get up and move around and I fear he may not be with us much longer…

In recent months, Shadow has become absolutely paranoid during storms and wants to either be as close to us as physically possible or find a nearby hiding place from the storm.  Being an indoor dog, that means surveying places like the six-inch space behind the TV (where he’ll never fit) or the corner behind a chair.  Now when the storms rage, we have another issue – he apparently gets so upset that 12 years of being housebroken is out the window and we have had to revert to the reward-and-punishment cycle of training a puppy.  Very irritating to say the least!

But, he is an aging member of the family and deserves the same love and respect he has always known.  Much as we should treat the elder human members of our family.  While I don’t pretend to understand what is going on in his head, it is also interesting to look around at some older people who similarly seem to have reverted to the mental state of a young child.  I know that I would want to be treated with love and respect should I live to be an old man.

New is Old? Old is New?

(or Nothing New Under the Sun)

Phlash Phelps, a personality on Sirius-XM Radio asked this morning’s audience to call in and relate a story if this had happened to them: (paraphrasing) ‘You mentioned a well-known personality to a younger person, and they said, “Who is that?”’

While I was listening, a lady called in and mentioned that a number of years ago, there was an article advertised on the cover of some tabloid about the death of Bob Hope and the clerk asked her, “Who is Bob Hope?”  That was particularly amusing to me because just last night, I mentioned Bob Hope to a young man and my wife asked him, “You do know who Bob Hope is…?”  He did.

One of my favorite variations of that theme came from a friend back in the 1990s.  We were eating lunch and talking about music.  He told me of a conversation he had overheard a week earlier, between a couple of teenagers in the restaurant booth behind him.  One of the teenagers was talking about this new guy who is really, really good…
“He’s a great guitarist, good singer, really great songs.”
The other teenager asked, “What did you say his name is?”
The first responded, “I think his name is like…Eric Clapton…?”
“Never heard of him.  He’s really that good?”
After nearly choking on his food from laughter, my friend turned to them and said, “Clapton has been around since the ‘60’s!”
“No way!  The guy I was talking about has new songs on the radio – and he doesn’t sound old!”

You see it a lot, if you look.  Old ideas, products, concepts, just keep resurfacing – because they’re good!

Think about leather.  Its use goes back to Genesis, or further, depending on your outlook.  Then it fell out of favor and was replaced by all manner of faux-leather materials – to include the use of the hide of the Nauga.  (Actually, Naugahyde is a vinyl material developed in 1936, popularized in the 1970’s, and still available.)  It’s not that those leather substitutes are bad.  They are often very good at simulating the look and feel of leather and sometimes wear well.  But leather has come back more than once because it is unique and has great properties for clothing, accessories, and décor.

Consider also that cotton you are currently wearing.  We wear it for both comfort and style.  But cotton clothing fell out of favor a number of years ago – primarily due to the difficulties in maintaining its crisp appearance.  Fortunately, it came back!  The cottons we are currently wearing frequently have a “new twist” (literally) but, are often still 100% cotton.  The origin of the use of cotton for clothing disappears into the distant, murky past.

Still, most of us who remember the cotton- and wool-replacing, double-knit, 100% polyester suits of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s generally don’t have a favorable impression!  But that “Old” concept is becoming “New” again with a different “twist” to the materials – cotton-poly (and other) blends and now, polyester microfiber cloth!

Here we go again…

Mothers…

What is the earliest memory you have of your mother, or father, for that matter?  But since Mother’s Day is almost upon us, let’s focus on her…

I have vague memories from very young, but the first clear memory is of me hiding from her in the garden area behind our house in Rouvrois sur Meuse, which is about five miles north of St. Mihiel in the direction of Verdun, in eastern France.  I was about four at the time.  If you are a student of history, particularly World War I, those names will be familiar.  The garden was rectangular and had a wall around it separating it from the backyard.  There was an opening in the wall at each end.  I was crouched down behind a bush or tree in the corner of that garden watching my mother and someone else walk into the garden calling my name and looking for me.  I don’t remember if that was a good thing or not, but we tend to forget the less pleasant experiences, so I suspect that I’ve repressed the memory of getting into trouble for hiding and not responding to being called.  I must have been an absolute delight to bring up in a foreign land…

Mom, as I later called her, was pretty young at the time – early 20’s.  Dad was in the Air Force and we had joined him there.  That particular European excursion also saw us living in Germany – Mainz, on the Rhein (Rhine) River, and Fürstenfeldbruck, near München (Munich).  She was a long way from home, living with her husband and young son in lands with different languages and unfamiliar customs.  I remember another time with her holding my hand on the side of the main road through Rouvrois as a large group of cyclists flew past, competing in who knows what bicycle race.  I have a vague memory that the reason she was holding my hand was because I had darted out between the cyclists, or had started to.

Yet another time, she and some others were frantically searching for me.  There was a canal behind the property of an older French lady with whom we had become friends.  She raised rabbits and Mom was concerned that I might have gone to see them, wandered on past and into the canal.  Rouvrois is still a very small community (look it up on Google Earth) and we lived kind of in the middle near the big church.  What I remember of the incident is that, in reality, there was nothing for her to be afraid of.  I was with a friend about my age and another, older, boy – “safe” on the other end of town – jumping from the loft of a barn into a pile of hay on the floor below…

If my children had done even half of what I did…

I am much older and a little wiser now – at least, I hope I am.  I am wise enough to try to honor two great ladies – my mother and my wife – at all times, but especially on Mother’s Day.

Writing Tools…

As I sit here typing my first blog entry on an Apple MacBook Air notebook computer, I have to reflect upon my personal history.  I have enjoyed writing all of my life, but never really pursued it other than as an adjunct to schooling or work.  The exceptions being letters written to family and friends.  And, while I am fascinated by history and have greatly admired the diaries kept by individuals in even the most dire of circumstances, it was something I only tried.  Dabbled in, at best.  I think somewhere around the 4th grade, I decided I wanted to write a novel.  Obviously that didn’t go very far, because I’m not famous for having written “the great American novel” at that young age…

Maybe it was the available tools that were the problem – I remember when my father came home from work all excited about the new pen he had!  He was in the Air Force and we were living in what was then West Germany.  The Air Force had just approved the use of ballpoint pens for official documents!  Up to that point, anything official had to be signed with a fountain pen because the ballpoint was too unreliable!  At least that’s the way I remember it…

I do remember a Schaeffer fountain pen that I wish I still had!  It was different. It had a “hooded” point and only the very end protruded from the covering – ideal for someone like me as I have always gripped both pen and pencil very close to the point!  If you try that with a standard fountain pen, you’ll soon have ink-coated fingers.  And believe me, that ink doesn’t come off easily!

As a senior in high school with college plans, and knowing that meant writing papers, I did one of the smartest things I think I ever did – I took typing…  Typing and shorthand were, at that time, considered classes taken only by girls (they weren’t “young ladies” back then) who were going to do secretarial work.  Boys just didn’t take those electives.  Uncharacteristically, there were probably a half dozen guys in my typing class – those planning to go to college.  We had manual typewriters, but we all got a chance to periodically rotate to one of the 10 expensive electric typewriters.  In college after getting hand-cramps from taking notes, I wished I had also taken shorthand!

So here I now sit, leaned back in my chair, keyboard on my lap, watching as letters magically appear (and disappear when I hit “delete”) on a monitor three feet away using a tool with more computing power than an Apollo spacecraft on its lunar journey…and what I miss, is the elegance and feel of a nice fountain pen! The ink just flows onto the paper so smoothly!  Especially one with a gold nib that wears and adapts to your hand much like a fine pair of shoes conforms to your feet.  Now if I could just find a fountain pen that writes on my Samsung Note tablet…