We took our MX5 on a drive down to southern Oregon to join the Miata Explore Oregon event.

Like many car clubs, Miata owners love to get together for social parties and a few organized group drives.  Not sure why it is fun to go on a drive with 20 cars in a parade through back wiggly roads, but it is.

On this meeting we choose to join a group that drove from Grants Pass to Crater Lake National park.  We had heard so many great things about this park we had to see it although it was a 2 hour drive each way.  When you arrive at the top edge of the rim of the sunken volcano lake you are stunned by the view.  This is up there with the first time you see the rim of the Grand Canyon.  A 16 mile across lake in the heart of an ancient volcano.  Spectacular views and we were there on a perfect day with brilliant blue skies… but with a problem.  I forgot to bring my camera or my IPad.

Everyone is taking pictures and selfies of this beautiful lake but not me.

The picture attached is borrowed from the internet.  It does not do it justice.  From the road around the rim there is a drop of 700 feet to the lake and the colour of the lake is as blue you see.

When we were growing up a highlight of the summer was the fresh corn-on-the-cob from the Qu’Appele Valley north of home.  We could have a meal of just the corn with butter and a sprinkle of salt, sometimes that was the entire meal.  Just delicious.

Over the years we have celebrated mid summer with corn-on-the-cob meals.  Taught our kids the proper technique for eating corn.  If the corn is great the kernels are flying.

Now there is a proper technique for eating corn.  You position the cob with the stem to the right and if necessary a fork or cob holder on pointy end at the left.  You melt butter all over and add a sprinkle of salt.

Then you pick up the cob and start to eat on the left.  You munch along on a line to the right just like a typewriter.  When you get to the right end (katching) you rotate the cob and begin again at the left.  Rows after rows with an occasional pause for breath.

This is the way that you eat Corn-On-The-Cob.  Rules written down for the last 3000 years.  Even if you are left handed, this is the way you eat corn.

Over the years I have enjoyed thousands of cobs. Always concentrating on the cob to make sure I did each set of rows properly.  Never bothered to watch the others at the table.

When we arrived home from our trip we bought some fresh corn to enjoy at our dinner.  Tonight I paused in mid row and looked over at Pat eating her corn.  I was stunned.  She starts on the RIGHT and rotates around then moves left for the next column.  The way a chipmunk would eat it.

I said, “Pat what are you doing? Do you not know proper corn-on-the-cob etiquette?”  She told me that this is the way she has always eaten corn.

How could I be married 46 years to this woman and never noticed this corn eating deviation?  How weird.

Still it is nice to be married this many years and still have an occasional surprise.

Despite the fact that, while I was what might had been termed a techie in my career, and prided myself in my early adoption of  computer skills, I am finding myself surprised by internet intrusions / discoveries.  I know my kids would say,  Well Dad is OK with the internet, maybe a bit behind the times but after all he does host a BLOG.

My grandchildren would tell you I am from the 20th century.  Now to digress I know people of my generation would say being told you were a 20th century guy would imply being hip and up to date.  But these days this is the equivalent to being described, as we would have said, of those that grew up in the depression and thought the radio was the greatest invention of all time.

Anyway back to my story.

I have been taking some pictures with my IPad.  Not like the thousands of people that point their IPhone or IPad at everything, but selectively.  I do have a good camera which I use for the photos I want to keep, but if I want a snap that I can send to my friends (and NO I do not have a selfie rod) I use the IPad.

Last week, lying in bed, I decided to go through the variety of pictures that I have on my IPad.  I noticed that some of the pictures had a title at the top that listed the location.  I thought, I do not remember putting these location identifiers in but maybe that is part of the GPS feature of the IPad.  Then I thought, wait a minute I did not have WiFi connection when these pictures were taken.

Then the big discovery.  A few months ago I was attempting to use the IPad as a scanner to scan in old photos.  I had experimented with a picture I took 30 years ago with a buddy Larry and his wife in Milan.  This was not a digital photo.  But there at the top was the location that not only listed the city of Milan it listed the piazza where I took the picture.

Stunned, I realized that the IPad was taking every picture and searching the Google to find identifiers to match the location.  Great feature but it means every picture you take on an IPad is in the public domain even if it is taken when you are not connected to anything.

Now for me, not that big a deal, as I only use the IPad for photos that I intend to share with the family.

Still it was another example of me being naive about how public everything is on a mini computer like an IPad.

Good thing I did not use the IPad for pictures of Patty and I dancing nude at sunrise on Haleakala Volcano in Hawaii (not that we would have done that)

While everyone loves the sunny days that we have enjoyed since mid May, it has brought about drought.  The same dry conditions that have produced forest fires throughout the interior and the northern Prairies and may kill off the farms in California.

We came back from our trip to Calgary to see brown lawns and when I played golf yesterday our normally lush course was suffering at the edges.  Major watering restrictions as there was little snow in the mountains last winter.

But it would not be Paradise if there was not some adjustment.  Woke up this morning to light rain and cooler temperatures.  No thunderstorms, no hail, no drenching downpour, no floods and no wind.  Just a light drizzle that lasted all day and will last for a couple of days before returning to sunshine.  Rain so light that golfers can continue and you can walk in it with a hat or umbrella but as you walk you just hear the plants and grass going “Ohhh Yeahhhh, this is nice”  In a couple of days all the landscape will be back to green.

Reminds me of the musical Camelot where the rain only falls in the evening.

In short there is simply not, a more congenial spot… than here in Paradise….

As all of you know, we are dog sitting the Westies of Janine and Vedran.  Lovely dogs but a bit demanding for affection.

I cannot sit on the couch without Jackes mooning away wanting to jump on my lap.  He follows me everywhere including into the bathroom for the morning ablutions.  Jackes sits on the mat outside the shower stall when I have a shower.

Reese does follow Pat but has a more laid back attitude… if you are not going to feed me or pet me, I will go for a nap.

Every time I go out into the backyard Jackes is like Chester jumping around Spike (to get this you would have to have watched cartoons in the 60’s)  He is very excited to be in the back yard with me when all I want to do is read the newspaper on the patio table.  He is crouching and prancing and it finally occurs to me that …he wants me to play.

I pick up a dog toy that looks like a tied rope,  let him sniff it and shake it back and forth and throw it out on the lawn.

Now I know that go-fetch is the fundamental game humans play with dogs.  They even have special handles for the object you throw so you do not get covered in dog slob.  Everything I know is that dogs will go-fetch until the human gives up.  You can spend hours doing this (not that I wanted to).

So I take this rope and let Jackes sniff it and throw it on the lawn and say Go-Fetch…. Jackes takes a couple of steps towards the rope and looks back at me with the look.  “If I go get this and bring it back you will just throw it again, what is the point”.  Then he wanders off to the part of the patio that was in the sun and lays down.

I blame Janine and Vedran for not bringing up our grand dogs right.              What kind of a dog does not Go-Fetch!!!!

My buddy Harry took me fishing today in his new boat.  He docks it in Port Alberni.  He picked me up at 4 am because it is an hour drive to the boat and then 2 hours sailing at 20 knots to his favourite Salmon spot about 30 kilometers out to sea in the Pacific.  It was foggy and overcast so very quickly out of sight of land.

Has to be a great spot because we quickly caught our limit of 10 salmon between the two of us.  Actually caught more but released those less than 2 feet long.

By far the most success I have ever had in fishing.  At one point we each had a fish on line and had to keep them apart and scrambled to help each other with the net.

The one Harry is holding was typical.  About 15 lbs.  A mixture of Coho and Springs.

I still maintain it is cheaper to buy fish at the store.  Harry fueled up his boat when we returned.  $750 in diesel.  However I do see the point that Harry has that catching them is more enjoyable than just buying at SuperStore.

My blog site was a gift from Meagan a few years ago.  Great name Views From Paradise.  I went on to register and own the viewsfromparadise.com domain.

Not sure why, but it seemed a logical step as it only costs $15 a year and it would keep my many fans that search for my blog to be diverted to a domain that sold pictures of girls in bikinis taken by a perv with a telescopic sight from his balcony on a cheap condo overlooking a popular beach.

Anyway that was the reason I spent the $15 a year.  As it turns out owning a good domain name has value since everyone is locking up every concept of an interesting name and sitting on it hoping to sell to a corporation or an entrepreneur looking to generate hits and advertising revenue.

My blog was intended for my family and friends and distinguished people interested in reading my opinions on life.  I suspect when I die one of my kids will have all my blogs published and……. it  might sell 12 copies.  The fact that I may one day be published, keeps me going.

Still there might be an earlier reward.  I have had numerous contacts from agents wanting to market my domain site but always if I pay them.  Today I received the first offer from a contact that asked if I was prepared to sell the domain site.  No money, and it might be an agent, but I said NO.

I have loyalty to my many fans.  I would not sell this, well maybe if it allowed me to retire…. wait a minute I am already retired.