Lila Perry Steinhoff Archives

November 21, 2012

Looking for Presents?

Wife Lila was honored at a retirement party Sunday night. She is part owner with Son Adam of DedicatedIT, and has been working in the company for the past nine years.

She was given a plaque recognizing her service: In Appreciation of Nine Years of Service and Corporate Mothering… Invoices processed: 5,799; Bills Entered: 4,154; Trips to the Bank: 1,854; Countless Errands; Being a Second Mom to All of Us; Nice as Pie at All Times.

The photo shows her holding her retirement package.

Click Here

Son Matt explained yesterday how clicking on this button to do your Amazon shopping will put a little money in my pocket (in case Lila’s Lotto ticket doesn’t pay off) without adding to your cost. I hate to sound like a PBS fund drive, but this site costs a bunch of money to maintain.

I burn more than $500 bucks in gas for each trip to Cape; that doesn’t include lodging on the road and meals. If Mother didn’t put me up at home, I couldn’t afford to spend a month or more at a time in town. My Nikon film scanner cost $1,800. Last month I had to replace a $500+ drive array and populate it with another $600 worth of drives. My desktop computer needed upgrading about 18 months ago and one of my two monitors died recently. I don’t mind donating my time, but it hurts to reach for the old checkbook to pay out real money for hardware, supplies, travel and services. The only solace I can take is that it’s cheaper than being owned by a boat.

Looking for photo equipment?

If you come to this site, you’re probably coming to look at photographs. Here are some links to equipment I’ve used to produce the contemporary photos, plus some less expensive cameras.

Nikon D40 – my first digital single lens reflex camera. I shot close to 40,000 photos with it before trading it to Son Adam.
Nikon D3100 – Adam bought this on eBay and thought it was more camera than he needed, so he traded it to me for my D40. It’s a better camera than the D40 and it’s actually cheaper.
Fujifilm FinePix JX500 Digital Camera – The battery compartment on the Kodak digital camera I bought for Mother a few years ago was broken, so I went looking for the easiest no-frills camera I could find. It takes good pictures for way under $100.
Canon PowerShot D10 12.1 MP Waterproof Digital Camera – Grandson Malcolm has one of these. I sure wish I had one when I was covering hurricanes. It’s waterproof, shockproof and takes great pictures.
Hoya Super Multicoated Ultrathin circular polarizing filter – There’s probably no accessory that will make your photographs more dramatic. I keep it on the lens to protect the front element and to remove reflections and to darken skies. Make sure you pick on that fits your lens. (My Nikon lens takes a 52mm.)
Domke PhoTOGS Vest – I used fishing vests to hold film and gear for years. A professional newspaper photographer named Domke developed a camera bag in 1976 that became the industry standard. I like working from a vest, so I was glad to see him design one with the right kinds of pockets and made of heavy cotton.

Finding your way

Mother and I like to say the day’s not complete until we’ve found a road we’ve never been on before. Sometimes, it’s nice to know where you are and how you’re going to get back home. I’ve had several flavors of Garmin GPS units on my bike and car.

Here’s the one I’ve found does a good job in my van – the Garmin Nuvi 760. It’s large enough to read, is generally accurate and has been dependable. Its beanbag mount rides very comfortably on my steering column.

Electronic Toys

About 10 years ago, we hooked Mother up with WebTV, a klugy way to connect with the Internet using a keyboard and her TV. It was a slow dial-up connection that used an obsolete browser. One of the guys at work won one of the first iPads and sold it to me for a fair price. We gave it to Mother for her Birthday Season three or four years ago, not sure she would adapt to it. Now, I think she’d give up her TV before she gave up her iPad. It’s been a great way for her to keep up with her extended family. If you have an elderly relative, open up a new world for them. They may adapt to the digital world faster than you think.

This is the latest flavor of iPad.

Wife Lila wanted a new, lighter, faster laptop to take on her cruise to Alaska. After consulting with The Boys, I ordered a Toshiba Satellite P775-S7368 17.3-Inch LED Laptop, which was a really sweet machine.

When it came in, though, she thought the 17.3″ screen made it too large for her to carry easily. Adam sold it to a client, and I ordered a Toshiba Satellite P775-S7368 17.3-Inch LED Laptop to replace it. I liked the bigger screen of the other laptop, but I borrowed this to take back to Cape to power my presentations. It was a lot faster than my 4-year-old computer and had an HDMI port.

I always hate to rely on equipment provided by others, so I bought an Epson EX7210 Projector. It was easy to set up, light and performed flawlessly. If you have to do formal presentations, I recommend this highly.

Very few of you need as much redundant data storage as I do, but I’ve been very impressed by my Drobo S 5-Bay Storage Array. If you look at the price, you can see why I’m hoping you click on the Amazon link for your shopping.

November 14, 2012November 25, 2013

Fall at Kentucky Lake

Mother and I went over to Kentucky Lake Monday to winterize her trailer. For you Florida folk, that means that we drained all of the water out of the drains and water lines and put antifreeze in any place that water might pool. If you don’t keep the pipes heated, the water in them will freeze and the pipes will burst. That happened to her a couple of winters ago. It’s not pretty and it’s not cheap to fix.

While she was inside the trailer doing inside-the-trailer stuff, I was blowing away the leaves that had fallen so far. Leaves, again for you Florida folks, are a big deal up here. And, I am far from being a proficient leaf herder. I’m not convinced that I couldn’t do a better job with a leaf rake.

Anyway, once I got the ground cleared off, it was covered with a gazillion hickory nuts that were like walking on ball bearings.

More hickory nuts to fall

They’re not done falling, either. Hearing those things bounce off your trailer top must make you feel like you’re under machine gun attack all night long.

Ducks on the lake

We took a swing down to the campgrounds to see what was going on. These guys don’t seem to notice that the water’s growing colder in the late afternoon.

Naked tree

We couldn’t help but notice this dead, naked tree with all its bark missing as we passed the entrance to Camp John Currie. It was worth a u-turn.

Peeling paint to peeling bark

I know I’ve been posting a lot of what we journalistic photographer disdainfully call “peeling paint” photos, but I couldn’t resist this shot of a trunk with its bark peeled off.

Something got under its skin

At some point in its life, something crawled around between the tree’s bark and its trunk.

Pining away for Wife Lila

I had to put that bad pun in to keep Wife Lila from dispatching me as a stranger breaking into the house when I get back to Florida this weekend.

October 17, 2012

91st Birthday Season Kicks Off

After my preview presentation of Ordinary People in Altenburg Tuesday night, the staff of the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum surprised Mother with a cake, flowers and balloon, kicking off the start of her 91st Birthday Season. Several of Wife Lila’s Class of ’66 showed up, including Terry Hopkins, who came all the way from Florida.

Friend Shari and her mother attended. It’s not often that someone can say that his first high school girlfriend and his last high school girlfriend are attending an event. Brother Mark came down from St. Louis.

A very receptive group of 37 (if I heard correctly) watched my photos and videos and listened to my war stories. They were actually TOO receptive. My goal was to figure out how to cut about 30 minutes from a presentation I did this summer. Riding Partner Anne warned me that if I played off my audience’s reaction, I was going to go long, not short. That’s exactly what happened. Now I have 46 minutes to cut. I needed someone to yawn or check their watch to clue me in that the listeners were getting restless.

Thanks to Carla Jordan and her staff for doing a great job hanging my photos, offering hat-stretching compliments and recognizing Mother’s Birthday Season. I would go into more detail, but my brain is fried. I don’t see how teachers do this kind of thing every day.

September 30, 2012September 30, 2012

Cleaning Up the House

Wife Lila and two of her friends are coming back home Saturday night after taking a cruise in Alaska. That means I’m scurrying around like a teenager who threw a keg party while his parents were gone. The place pretty much passes the sniff test (or my sense of smell has gone dead).

This trip left me in unusual circumstances. Normally she takes my level of domestic skills into consideration before she leaves town and makes sure that the laundry is in a U+4 status. (That means four pairs of underwear more than the anticipated days she’ll be on the road).

Abandoned in U-3 status

She had a lot of last-minute tasks to take care of, so she left me in a U-3 status. Faced with either turning the articles of clothing inside out to bridge the gap or going out and buying more, I tackled the washing machine. It didn’t belch suds, my white underwear is the same color as when it went in (I remembered to add the fabric softener, too) and the smoke alarm didn’t go off. An even number of socks came out. That must mean that I either didn’t lose a sock or the sock monster coughed up a spare.

The fridge was pretty barren of leftovers, too. I thawed out a bag of frozen homemade chili for a couple of meals and there was enough cheese and lunch meat around to carry me for a few more. In the end, though, I had to reach for my cookbook: a stack of takeout menus under the kitchen telephone.

Dishes are overrated

Dishes are highly overrated. Food tastes just as good off a paper plate and you don’t have to wash it. OJ tastes a lot better straight from the bottle.

In the end, though, I had to fire up the dishwasher for coffee cups, eating utensils and the like. The experience went much better than the first time I did it when the kids were little. I got everything loaded, put in the detergent and went into the living room where we had the computer set up.

All of a sudden, I heard the kids screaming “Daddy! Daddy!” and turned to see them running from a wall of suds only slightly ahead of a thoroughly traumatized cat. Who KNEW that all soaps weren’t made alike? Well, at least the kitchen cabinets were clean up to about waist level.

It’ll be good to have her back home. I’m just waiting to hear what I did wrong.

[The Missouri Utilities ad came from the 1956 Sesquicentennial book.]