So J.D. Souther is dead. Or maybe he styled it JD, no periods, like you-know-who the hillbilly racist. Still, a moment of silence from me.
:::a moment passes:::
You probably don’t know him, but I think of him as providing many entries on the playlist from a particular time in my life. He was a songwriter, and wrote a lot for the Eagles, among many others. To me, though, it all comes down to “The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band,” one album that came out in 1973 and I discovered a couple years later. It still evokes that time in Athens, when my world was school, beer in student bars, health-food restaurants, the rural roads around the county, and all that. Later on, Souther would appear on “thirtysomething” as John Dunaway, a crunchy-granola social-justice type who tempts Hope with infidelity, but she resists. When is “thirtysomething” coming to streaming, anyway? I need to reacquaint myself with these people.
Anyway, a toast to JD. Lately, all the sexy men I remember from my youth are revealed as very old men. And I know what that means.
Speaking of the decrepitude of age, let’s hurry up with this new technology, so I don’t have to get a knee replacement:
(W)hy replace a knee if just the cartilage can be repaired instead? That line of thinking has led to new techniques flipping the script on how to mend troublesome knees.
“We’re not going to stop arthritis,” says Cassandra Lee, chief of the division of sports medicine at UC Davis Medical Center, as well as the orthopedic surgeon who operated on McHatton. “But can we push that knee replacement way down the road? That is, I think, the ultimate goal.”
…Wiley and colleague Ken Gall, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke, are instead trying to re-create cartilage in the lab. Over the last several years they’ve developed a hydrogel composed of polyvinyl alcohol, a polymer often used in contact lenses, and cellulose fibers. Tests in a compression machine, Wiley says, demonstrated that the product could support 1,100 pounds of force, simulating five years of use. The hydrogel, which is pressed into the end of the femur bone, is being used in a Phase 1 human trial in Latin America. Wiley and Gall hope to get the green light to begin human trials in the United States sometime next year.
You should not be one little, teensy-weensy, speck of surprised to hear that the guy who killed himself and others in the OceanGate submersible disaster was a prickly egomaniac:
In 2016, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush steered paying customers in the Cyclops I, a Titan predecessor, to the wreckage of the Andrea Doria, a ship that sank in 1956 off Massachusetts, former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge said during a hearing about the Titan’s implosion.
Yep, ol’ Tock Rush nearly got the thing stuck on the bottom, checking out the wreck of the Andrea Doria, and only turned the controls over to another with petulance. Which he had a lot of:
Lochridge elaborated on Tuesday, testifying about a culture in which his safety concerns were shrugged off to feed Rush’s ego — by accomplishing feats no other reputable deep-sea exploration company had tried because they were dangerous.
You don’t say.
In other news at this hour, happy interest rate cut. And happy birthday to Dexter, before the day slips away.
Dorothy said on September 18, 2024 at 6:18 pm
Not to be Dorothy Downer but unless that imitation cartilage is ready in the next couple of years, you are likely going to have to do the knee surgery. And speaking from experience 11 years ago when I had my knee replacement, when you get yours done, make sure you get the handy dandy raised seat for your toilet. You’ll be very glad you did. A friend told me about this tip and I was very grateful.
A friend who lives about 70 miles north of me is having her knee replacement surgery in February once she gets on Medicare. Her bout with breast cancer a few years ago was pricey so she’s waiting for the knee surgery, and it won’t come a moment too soon. She is in significant pain. She found what she calls an ‘ice machine’ for her post surgery recovery and asked me if I could meet the seller since we both live in the same town. I said Of Course! So on Sunday I met the lady in the parking lot of the library. She and I b.s.’d a bit. After about 5 minutes of chat she said she has a friend who moved into the same subdivision I did. Turns out she lives across the street from me. This was delightful for me to learn as I don’t get to find out I have mutual friends very often. Having moved five times since 2002 it’s a real treat to have that hoot of recognition when someone says a familiar name.
When we were house hunting in Cincinnati (our destination when we had to leave Pittsburgh in 2002) I was waiting in the lobby if a restaurant to meet hubby for a weekend of house hunting. I watched couple after couple meet, embrace, smile, talk enthusiastically to catch up with each other. It gave me the biggest pang of sadness because all I could think was “when am I going to be able to do that again?! I’ll know no one here!”. It was a crappy feeling. But I’m a pretty talkative person so eventually I got to experience that in almost every city we’ve moved to since leaving Pittsburgh. You can’t find out if you know someone via someone else until you chat them up!
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Julie Robinson said on September 18, 2024 at 6:52 pm
We got the tall toilets six or so years ago and boy howdy they are nice. I missed them all the way through Europe, where I felt I was visitng a kindergarten. But after working out with our trainer for a year, I didn’t have any trouble getting up from them. I’m still fat and my ankle hurts all the time, but I can get that fat butt up from a low toilet easily and without knee pain.
Anyone else want to send Israel to the war court at the Hague?
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brian stouder said on September 18, 2024 at 7:55 pm
Excellent link! Playlists from my life would be comprised by The Police, Pearl Jam, and a mish-mash of odds and ends and one-offs scattered across the years
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Suzanne said on September 18, 2024 at 8:27 pm
Several months ago, I needed to use the powder room at a funeral dinner. The handicapped stall was occupied so I went into a regular stall. Turns out, the dinner was in the church’s pre-school area so it was a very low toilet. But I had to go badly so down I went, wondering the entire time what I would do if I could not get up! There was nothing but a flimsy toilet paper holder to grab onto. Fortunately, I made it up and without grunting. A win! At my age and with the past couple of tough health years I have experienced, the smallest things do bring me joy.
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Sherri said on September 18, 2024 at 8:35 pm
Arthritis in both knees, but doing my heavy squats helps keep things moving. In general, resistance training has helped deal with joint problems for me.
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Deborah said on September 18, 2024 at 9:18 pm
LB told me that if for some reason you have to sit on the ground outside or on the floor inside and you’re over 50 you better have a plan about how you’re going to get back up before you get down. When I garden I keep a small foldable stool to sit on so I don’t have to sit on the ground or squat. It’s only about 8 or 9″ off the ground but makes all the difference. I have to admit there have been times when I’ve had to get down on the floor to scrub something or whatever, then I’ve had to call for help to get back up.
In Abiquiu we sleep on futons on the floor, I have over the years had to figure out a plan to get up. First I turn over, get on my knees, then lean forward face down and push myself up with my arms and move my legs from a kneeling to a standing position slowly, one at a time. It’s the only way now days. Using my leg muscles is useless. Maybe I could figure out some leg exercises to build up my thigh muscles but I haven’t yet done that.
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Sherri said on September 18, 2024 at 10:17 pm
Back in the day in Silicon Valley, there was a surplus electronics store called Weird Stuff Warehouse. Looking at the pictures from the report on the doomed submersible, it looks like it was built by a bunch of hackers scavenging parts at Weird Stuff Warehouse. I can’t believe that people paid money to dive in that thing.
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A different Connie said on September 18, 2024 at 11:50 pm
Heads up, we bought thirtysomething when it came out on DVD a few years ago; it’s not nearly as good as I remember it when I was watching it in my early 30s.
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Dave said on September 19, 2024 at 9:59 am
I remember J. D. Souther and Souther, Hillman, Furay. I knew more about Hillman, a former Byrd and present in many versions of the Southern California sound, and Richie Furay, native of Yellow Springs, OH, who was in Buffalo Springfield, a personal favorite, and Poco, one of the first country-rock bands. I think there were only two albums by those three, and I believe I’ve read that they were more or less thrown together by a record company.
Can’t say that I ever watched thirtysomething, there was about a ten year period where the only thing I remember watching were kid-oriented shows, it seems like I mostly remember TGIF, the ABC block of shows aimed at kids.
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Dorothy said on September 19, 2024 at 10:02 am
Have to come here to tell y’all that my son just got two tickets for us to see Hakeem Jeffries on the OSU campus in late November. I’m so excited!! The last politician I got to see in person was President Obama when he was running again in 2012. Let’s hope we have a lot to be happy about on that date since it’ll be almost 3 weeks after the election.
Also is anyone else now getting a warning when submitting comments here about the website being ‘not secure’? I never got that until yesterday. And i just got it again today whenI submitted this comment. I think this might be part of a Chrome update I did yesterday.
Also I loved thirtysomething when it was on but I feel like it’s not going to age well in 2024 if given a chance to watch the episodes again. Still, I’d prefer to come to that conclusion myself.
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Dave said on September 19, 2024 at 11:04 am
Dorothy, I’ve gotten that warning before but not recently. However, I purchased a new Kindle tablet last March and I cannot open up this website on it, although I’ve always been able to open it on other Kindle tablets. Instead, I get a message with a picture of a robot on its side sleeping that says, “Site not Found, well, this is awkward, the site you’re looking for is not here.” Oh, and DreamHost is underneath.
As for your other warning, I’ve discovered that clearing out the history usually solves the problem of receiving a site not secure message.
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Deborah said on September 19, 2024 at 11:10 am
I watched Thirtysomething, probably every episode, I liked it a lot back then but I can imagine that I wouldn’t like it now. I’m trying to conjur a picture of the actors but I can’t, I’ll have to Google images so I can remember.
I do that with food, I think back about things I used to like but now, not so much. Tastes evolve. I used to read Bob Greene, lol.
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alex said on September 19, 2024 at 11:13 am
Dorothy, I started getting that warning years ago and I remember addressing it. I think J.C. Burns explained it and that it’s nothing to be concerned about.
Tonight I’m signed up to attend Kamala and Oprah’s online rally. I suppose it’s one way to feel connected here in lonely red Indiana. Although I must say I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see a lot of Harris/Walz signs and will probably get one of my own. On Midway Drive in Auburn the other day, there were three households for Harris/Walz and only one for Trump/Vance.
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