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We were driving home from some event, and the topic of conversation turned to blood pressure. One of the kids asked what the two numbers were, and I couldn’t remember the term, so I just said the top one was “apostolic”.

The funny thing was that it sounded close enough so that people just went with it.

I then admitted what happened and the kids were throwing out other options, just about anything that ended in -olic (but not -holic).

• apostolic
• anabolic
• diabolic

Those are the terms I could remember. Feel free to use any of those next time you’re discussing blood pressure.

A few weeks ago, we watched the MAC championship football game. I wouldn’t normally plan to watch the MAC championship, but two things happened.

1. The top team in the MAC going into that game was the University of Toledo, and our oldest son goes there, so we’ve been to a game at Toledo both this year and last year, so it was of interest to us.

and 2. Thanks to a friend’s generosity, we got to be in one of the Terrace Suites. So that was another vote for going.

I have to applaud the person who setup the arrangement of TV screens. But first, some background.

The way the Terrace Suites are setup, they are not fully private. You have a seating section in front that’s open to everything, and then a small counter area that’s somewhat enclosed. The enclosure is a partially frosted glass pane, so you can see your neighbors in the next suite. Like this:

Each suite has a TV screen in the “inside” counter area and a TV screen in the “outside” seating area. You get a remote to be able to change the station if you want. Here is what they looked like in our suite.

When we got there, our screens were on but our neighbor’s screens were off. At least they looked off to us, but the kids noticed if you look through the glass, you could see the image. Like this:

The initial guess was there was some sort of filter, but then we noticed the images were reversed, and it was actually a reflection of the screen in our suite.

And that’s why I was impressed with the person who setup the suites. Because I moved my head up and down, and no matter at what height I viewed the other screen through the glass, the reflection lined up perfectly.

Here are some GIFs of how well the inside and outside screens both align.

That was me just moving the camera left to right. I didn’t get shots of it moving up and down.

I was always impressed with people who could make life lessons out of things.

“Wow, that’s a really good way of looking at that.”
“How did they think of that?”
and so on.

But then I discovered that you can make anything a life lesson if you want. You can even make the same thing two opposite lessons. People just make them up.

This realization came to me last summer as I was figuring out how to keep our pool clean.

I read something about how you should stir the water and brush the sides so the gunk doesn’t settle and can get pulled into the filter. It won’t stay clean unless you keep things active. And I was reminded of relationship advice – not to let problems fester, but to get things out in the open. You can’t resolve any problems by ignoring them.

Then we went away on vacation, and the pool sat unattended for a week or two. And all the gunk settled and congealed into a mat at the bottom of the pool, and it was easily scraped up in large chunks. And I was reminded of relationship advice – not to keep bringing up disagreements and hurts, but to give things time to heal.

No, it’s not a perfect analogy, but I never was that good at making life lessons out of things. But the life lesson here is that you can get lessons out of anything. Like Ratatouille – not that everything can be a life lesson, but that a life lesson can come from anywhere.

With the daylight hours diminishing, I can’t spend all evening working outside on yard projects anymore. So I’m stuck inside after dinner.

I’ve found myself wondering if I should catch up on some of the movies I’ve been thinking about watching. But then I remember that it’s football season, so half the time the evening could be spent watching football.

I then got to comparing watching sports versus watching a movie. If I have to spend two hours of my evening, which is better?

With movies, they have different characters, but the plots are generally similar and the ending is about the same.

With sports, they have the same recurring characters and the plots are generally similar, but the ending is unknown.

I usually end up watching football because it’s live. I know the movies aren’t going anywhere, and it’s not very fun watching a game a week or two later after you know the outcome.

Yes, there are still plenty of projects inside the house to do, but it seems my motivation sets with the sun.

One of main complaints with the iPhone is the inconsistent interface for clock notifications. I use both the alarm (for waking up in the morning) and the timer (reminders during the day) just about every day. And I never know which button to press to get it to stop.

Here’s the alarm:

And here’s the timer:

My problem is that I want to press the larger, more colorful button. But Apple has made the decision that for the two parts of its clock app, the larger, more colorful button will have two different meanings.

So when my iPhone starts making clock noises, I have to look at it, figure out which button means “stop” and which button means “remind me again soon”, and press the one I want.

One of these days, I’ll change my alarm setting to turn off the snooze option…

In the past year, I have experienced three very useful inventions. They are of the type that made me wish I had gotten them sooner. So now I’m sharing them with you, so you can have a better life.

• Ratchet Belt

  

  I have worn out a number of belts because my waist is a consistent size. So I’m always putting the belt buckle on the same setting, and all that wear and tear in one spot causes the notch to wear out faster. The rest of the belt is fine, but it’s gnarly-looking at best or worn through at worst.

  I tried the web-type belts with the clamping claw, but that has two problems. 1: the claw is slightly destructive, so the more I use the belt the worse it looks. I can see scratches and runs in the fabric webbing. And 2: the buckle releases way too easily. It occasionally catches on something when I turn and it pops open, rendering the belt temporarily useless.

  But at Christmas I got a ratchet belt, the kind with the ratchet on the underside. These belts are awesome. The design keeps any wear and tear to the inside of the belt, so no one sees it. It’s not infinitely-adjustable, but the sizing is a lot finer resolution than traditional notches. I highly recommend them.

• Clicky Paper Towel Holder
  That’s a clicky holder of paper towels, not a holder of clicky paper towels.

  

  My sister got one of these and we tried it and then had to buy our own.

  You can look up “click paper towel holder” or “one hand paper towel holder” or something like that.

  The point is that you can pull the end gently and it unrolls, but if you tear it then it doesn’t unroll. There’s a resistance mechanism built into it. Now I don’t have the weekly chore of winding the paper towels back onto the roll.

• Stepped Car Ramps

  

  I saw a Youtube video about someone who made these, and I was inspired to make my own. Sometimes the Youtube feed algorithm works.

  In this case, it’s useful for me because I work on my cars and I have a stick shift. I’ve had a set of ramps for years, and they’ve been helpful, but I never liked trying to get the manual car up them.

  Also in my case, I’m a little gun shy because I did overshoot the end of a ramp once, and ended up having to jack up the side of the car to free the ramp that it had crashed on. So now I am cautious if I think I’m nearing the end of the ramp.

  With the stick, it’s a pain trying to be cautious on a ramp, because that’s not good for the clutch. Also, my parking brake is not that good so if I stop before the end of the old-style ramp, I have to go back down to the beginning.

  The stepped car ramp is nice because I can count to know when I’m on the last level. 1, 2, 3, stop. And if something goes wrong and I have to stop before the end, each section is level so the car never rolls back. I can stop on level 2 and the car stays there. Note that I built my car ramps longer than this set, so each level has plenty of room for a tire.

  It’s also probably better for the automatic transmissions too – don’t want to use the parking pawl to hold you in place on a ramp while you get out to check if you’re at the top yet.

With a couple different vacations this summer, I’ve had time to read some books. Half of these I picked and half of these were recommended to me by the wife and/or kids.

I’m going in order of when I read them.

First up: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

I have read this book before, but it was a while ago. It was on our shelf when I was looking for books to read, and as it was a small book it looked good for a vacation read.

I like this classic sci-fi type of book, and because it’s such a classic I feel any review I give will be mostly useless. If you’ve never read H.G. Wells it would be an okay start.

Next up: King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard

I picked this book off our shelves as something to read for the last few vacations, and took it along but never got around to reading it. It also is not a very large book. It was a more interesting story than The Time Machine. I liked it, but it’s not for everyone these days. It was written a while back and different things were socially acceptable back then.

Spoiler Alert

After I read it, I was thinking it would make a good movie, but no one would make it as written. It’s about white people who are journeying into the heart of Africa to find some treasure, and helping a displaced king of a tribe regain his throne. I was thinking what they could do to make it into a movie, then I realized that’s basically the plot of Black Panther. Any attempt to make a movie of KSM would be seen as a white man’s Black Panther. And to remove the African tribe element would turn it into any other adventure story, which would probably be fine, but then it wouldn’t be this story. I think its time has passed for a movie.

End Spoiler Alert

Next up: Story Thieves by H. James Riley

Just kidding, the author is James Riley. But all the authors so far had a first initial of H. so I tried to continue the trend.

This one is like Inception. Except it’s a book. I’ll call it Bookception.

James Riley wrote this book, but in this book there’s an author who is writing his book series, and the protagonists move between the two. It was an entertaining story. There are more books to the series than this first one, which worked well enough as a standalone. It left the door open for the rest of the series but its not like some books that don’t resolve enough in the first book so you have to read the rest.

I don’t remember anything objectionable, so it’s probably fine for anyone who wants to read it. Lower middle grade certainly.

My only complaint is that now I’m interested in reading the book series that’s in this book. I was going to call it the fictional book series. As opposed to the fiction book series. James Riley should take up the pseudonym of the guy in the story and publish those books.

Next up: The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands

This one was highly recommended by my son, who is entering 9th grade. It was a refreshing change of pace – a unique setting and characters. England around the time of the Black Plague.

It is a little violent and gruesome, but not out of place with the things that probably happened back then. As with the previous review, I have read only the first book, so I can’t vouch for the rest of the series. But no problems with upper middle grade readers for this one.

Next up: Land of Stories by Chris Colfer

This is another one that I’ve been trying to read for a while. This was one of the better books I’ve read recently, as far as getting into it and wanting to read it once I’ve started. It’s good for people who know all their fairy tales and nursery rhymes and such. So if your kids don’t know those, have them go through Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Mother Goose collections.

As with the previous review, I have read only the first book, so I can’t vouch for the rest of the series. But no problems with lower middle grade readers for this one.

That’s it for this review. Maybe I’ll be able to finish a series soon.