2016 Presidential Long List

In case you haven't noticed, the campaigning has started for the 2016 presidential election, which is a little more than two years away (Nov. 8, 2016).
Dr. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, is the first Republican to announce his candidacy. Hillary Clinton is the apparent frontrunner for the Democrats, and may run essentially unopposed.

Other possibilities for the Republican Party, in order of my personal preference (which could change daily and I can be swayed by sensible arguments): Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Sonny Perdue, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, Tim Pawlenty, George Pataki, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Rick Santorum and South Dakota Senator John Thune.
There are some young, charismatic conservatives on that list, and that's what the Republicans are going to need to oppose Hillary. Hopefully they won't tear each other apart too much in the debates. The first primaries are about 14 months away...

First Date

Thirty years ago today, Oct. 16, Alice and I had our first date. It was a Tuesday night, much warmer than today, and we went to the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen on Bardstown Road in Louisville. We sat at a little table in the corner with a player piano drowning out the noise of the hundred or so other customers there. I was facing Alice and the wall. Eventually a waitress who was sweeping the floor asked if we wanted a cup of coffee. 

"Strange," I thought, and I looked around. No one else was there. All the chairs were turned upside down and placed on the other tables. I had been babbling on for so long (and wishing I could shut myself up) that they were getting ready to close, and I hadn't even noticed.

She's been putting up with me, and distracting me like that, for 30 years now...

The Last Week of July

And thus begins the worst week of the year for me, and some of my friends and relatives. On July 27th, 2010, my cousin Darrell died. He was a year or two older than me, and more like a brother than a cousin to me. He spent his last decade on kidney dialysis, going to a clinic for that about three times a week. On July 27th, 2011, my best friend of 40 years, Dave Brooks, called and asked me if there was anything I wanted him to tell my dad when he saw him. He had just gotten word that he had kidney cancer. It would rapidly spread and he would die three months later, on Halloween afternoon. He was more like a brother than a friend to me...
On July 29th, 2008, my dad died, another one of my best friends. He battled peripheral neuropathy and was wheelchair bound for his last five years, only to die from lung cancer. It was discovered at the end of June that year. My dad was buried on August 1st.
So forgive me if I seem a bit melancholy this week. And a bit paranoid. I don't trust the last week of July...

No Key Detected

Kelly decided she'd drive herself to church this afternoon to meet with the youth group as they were heading off to camp for the next few days. I didn't think her car needed to sit in the church parking lot all week, so I took Alice by the church to pick it up. Her car was in the driveway as we were leaving and mine was low on gas, so I thought we'd take hers. I got the keys to that car, and put mine back because I didn't figure I'd need them. Out in the garage she called an audible and said we should take my car, that I could get around hers backing out (and of course I could).
I had ordered a pizza from the Domino's around the corner from the church before I left the house, and once I dropped her off I drove over to Domino's, parked the car, reached in my pocket to lock it as I got out and realized I had no key. It's a new car (18 months old now), it's keyless to crank (as long as the key signal is somewhere in the car), and I hadn't brought mine. It cranked at the house because Alice had a key to the car in her purse. It remained cranked after I dropped her off at the church until I got to Domino's and shut it off. Yeah, I noticed the "Detecting No Key" message, but figured as long as it was running maybe it was just having trouble detecting the key signal. It took reaching in my pocket and finding no key to remember I had put it back on my dresser...
There was no longer a key or key signal in the car. It was in Kelly's car. Which was on the way back to the house. With Alice. Who evidently either didn't bring her cell phone with her or wasn't answering it. I went on into Domino's, paid for the pizza, went out to the car, kept calling the house till Alice got back home, ate a couple of slices while I waited, with the door to the car open because it was such a pleasant, mild summer night. But we now know there's at least one problem with a new car and a keyless ignition. And we also know what the car is trying to tell us when it says "Detecting No Key."

A Fourth to Remember

Highlights of the Gatlinburg trip last weekend for me, other than being with 19 family members in a luxury mountainside cabin: hiking trails and roads every day, in the park and near the cabin; driving the Cade's Cove loop, despite the fact I have the world's worst luck in seeing a bear (there are supposed to be bears in the Smokies, and for that matter Denali, right?); watching a movie (even if it WAS "Frozen," which I hadn't seen before and it wasn't THAT bad) on the really big screen in the cabin's theatre room - I need one of those in the house; shopping in Gatlinburg - didn't take me long to see most of the downtown shops and I spent about three minutes in the record store, which was disappointing in its stock of music and more of a head shop than a music store (I almost got a contact high just from being in there); and stopping on the way back at the KFC Cafe in Corbin, Ky., where Clark County's own Harland Sanders had his original store close by. I also really enjoyed the nightly gatherings around the firepit outside, talking and watching the kids roast marshmallows for s'mores, the younger ones and some older "kids." It's the first time we've done anything like that as a family with the whole local Bowles clan. Hopefully it won't be the last...
Now that I'm some distance removed from the trip back home, which was a nightmare and a whole other story, I can concentrate on the good memories part...

We'll Manage Somehow...

Alice and I went down to the river after noon to walk through the Jeffersonville BBQ and Blues cookoff Festival. It's the second largest in Indiana now. I saw competitors there from Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia. Now that I've learned how to cook amazin' BBQ ;), I wasn't inclined to pay $7 for a pulled pork sandwich or $10 for ribs. That seems a bit overpriced to me...
From there we decided to ride out to Leavenworth and eat at the Overlook Restaurant, probably the best view on the Ohio River. We both had the Chicken Cordon Bleu, which was very tasty and worth the 45-minute drive, and before we left town we stopped at Stephenson's General Store, which was very clean and had a lot to choose from, or at least to browse through...
She wanted ice cream, so we stopped at Culver's before we got back home. I'm trying not to eat sweets this month but I had to give myself a day off, okay, another day off, so I could order a Snicker's Concrete Mix-In.
We got back in time to catch Louisville's first College World Series game in "Omaha!" this year. Looks like Vanderbilt may hand them their first playoff loss...
The girls are worried we're not gonna know what to do with ourselves when the nest gets empty. That's assuming it's considered empty when Kelly goes to college in a couple of months. I'm inclined to think we'll manage somehow...

Busy Day in April

Busy day. Had my annual physical with Steve Havens at 2 this afternoon. Got the cleanest bill of health I've gotten in years. On the kidney disease mix-up, he said that if I die from kidney disease it'll be at least 35 years from now. I said at the age of 93, I ought to die from something anyway. He said, let me change that to 50 years. You're not gonna die from problems with your kidneys. And then he took any reference to my kidneys off my chart. My BP was 120/80. My blood work was clean on any possible colon problems. He said come back in six months if you want to, in a year if you don't want to...

After the annual physical, I went by the AT&T store. They've been running a TV ad for about a month with a family plan that includes 10 gigs of internet and unlimited text and talking, which is the same plan we signed for back in August for $85 a month more than they're advertising it for. I thought I'd be there all day trying to renegotiate the contract, but the sales rep changed it for me, shook my hand and sent me on my way, in about two minutes, with a plan that's $100 a month less than it was...
They might get my business again in 18 months (he didn't even extend the contract). Heck, I may even toss out the cable, and bundle TV, internet and the land line phone with them. I'll at least consider it...

Done at the AT&T store, I drove down the road to the Sears store to see if I could get new glasses and discovered their optometry department is going out of business. They were packing it up. So I drove back down Veterans to Bizer's, had my eyes checked there, picked out some new frames and ordered the new glasses. The pet store was in the same parking lot, so I bought some cat food. And since I was in the same neighborhood as the Krispy Kreme store, I got a half-dozen chocolate-glazed donuts.

After that I came home, picked up Kelly and met Alice at Culver's for dinner. I ordered the pot roast with mashed potatoes and cheese curds. Having tried everything on the menu now that I wanted to try, I can say the Cheddar Butterburger still rules, but the pot roast dinner was a pretty good second choice. I've been to or had food picked up from the new Culver's every week it's been open, and I've yet to have any ice cream from this location. Seems we always have some at home...

Maybe next week...