The Oppenheimer Report - 5/27/12

As I write this week’s report, I am anxiously awaiting the delivery of a piece of furniture which has been dear to me my entire life. In our family beach house, just a fifteen minute drive from Buffalo on the Canadian shore of Lake Erie, there sat a unique dining room table. I think it has been in our family for over 65 years. Made of oak, it has expanding roll top ends, very similar to the top cover of a roll top desk. The table expands with a crank and I am told it is extremely rare. To me it is priceless, because it served as the dinner table for four generations of my family. My then very mischievous Uncle Harry used to crank it in while dinner guests were at the table, causing their plates to fall into their lap. There is an amusing story that my mom used to tell about that table. My maternal grandfather, Harry Lehman Sr., then owner of the beach house, was vacationing in Palm Springs, California. On one of his daily walks he came upon a shabbily dressed, dischevaled man working out in the front yard of a very large and impressive estate. He assumed the man was a groundskeeper, and my grandfather, who loved talking to just about anybody, struck up a conversation with the man. Soon they were fast friends and when the man asked my grandfather to come in for a glass of lemon-aid, my grandfather asked. “Won’t your boss mind?“ The guy replied, “I am the boss.“ When Grampy went inside, he was surprised to see the exact same expandable oak table that he had in the dining room of his summer home. He mentioned this to his host and the man seemed incredulous. He told my grandfather that there were four of these tables in all of North America, perhaps all of the world, and that it was too great a coincidence that a man he'd just met by chance should have one of the other three. Grampy assured him he did, and the next time that man was back East, visiting Niagara Falls with his brother, he made a special trip to my grandfather’s summer home to see the double.

For years I have been consulting The News of the Weird for some of my stranger news stories and the other day I read one that made me belly laugh. It seems that there is an unusual Spring tradition in Dongyang, China. Every year around this time the town anxiously awaits the arrival of a local delicacy: “Virgin Boy Eggs.” For centuries it has been the town tradition to boil eggs in the fresh urine of little boys, preferably boys under the age of ten, then to eat them in the belief that this will bring good health, renewed energy, and prosperity. Hmmm. Banff has her hot springs, Dongyang has its eggs boiled in the urine of little boys. Take your pick. While I concede that there are many things to be learned from the wisdom of Eastern medicine, perhaps this is not one of them. Then again, who am I to say?

By now I’m sure you’ve heard at least something about the scandal in the U.S over Secret Service agents hiring prostitutes down in South America. Now it appears the scandal is spreading. Some DEA agents are now accused of hiring Columbian prostitutes, suggesting that this is a bigger national security issue than originally thought. One DEA guy said, “hey I thought I was just getting a massage.” Yeah, yeah, and the dog ate your homework. I like it when I can see my tax dollars at work. Last week tech giant Hewlett Packard announced it will cut 27,000 jobs from its payroll, Bee Gee Robin Gibb died (so much for "stayin' alive"), and tropical storm Beryl bears down on the East Coast, promising to be a significant rain event....

But the big news is,  my table has arrived, and it boy does it look good in this house!

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 5/21/12

Today I begin this report with a mini rant about contractors. There is a reason why shows like Holmes on Homes are so popular. Over the past five years we’ve had the occasion to use a lot of different contractors in the building of our house, and one thing I can say from my experience is that there are more bad ones than good ones. It seems especially true up here in the Great White North; there are some real flakes up here passing themselves off as pros. In my opinion plumbers top the list on the flake scale. We had a guy do some major plumbing work on the old cottage, and when we needed him back to fix a deficiency, we found out he’d skipped town owing half the community money. The guy who installed most of the plumbing in the new home, hired by our general contractor, was completely and utterly unreliable. He’d start a job and walk away for weeks, holding up all the other trades reliant on the completion of his work. Single handedly he sabotaged our building project and cost us a lot of time and money. I’m told he had an alcohol problem. A few months after he had disappeared for good, we found out just how much he’d done wrong or failed to do altogether. For example, he reversed the hot and cold on a one of the showers and simply forgot to install most of the cutoff valves in the basement. What I am learning, slowly, and especially since we moved to the Great White North, is that when we do find a good tradesman, we are quick to pay our bill, and we treat them like foreign dignitaries. Luckily, we’ve had a great carpenter from the beginning, and he has introduced us to some other good subs. I’ve heard from more than one resident up here that the good contractors do not need to advertise, because they are busy enough by word of mouth. Indeed we could keep several trades busy for a year or two with all the mistakes made by the others.

Last Thursday I picked up my boat from the marina, complete with its new Evinrude ETEC 200 HP outboard motor, new steering cables, and a new depth finder. It was a frosty 50 degrees F when I picked it up, but I bundled up and took it for a long ride over to the big lake. This is my first marine upgrade in 23 years and there have been significant improvements in outboard technology in that time. These days a lot of people buy four stroke engines (gas only) because they tend to run cleaner, but the new 2 strokes are much improved in this regard, and much lighter than comparable four strokes. We’ll see how the new power plant fares after a few seasons, but so far I’m impressed. Fuel injection ensures it starts right up and it is quiet as a sewing machine at low idle. The most significant improvement is that it is much faster off the line. This week I’ll check it out with the GPS to see what its top end is. I suspect it’s a little slower than the old 225HP, but then again, I’m a little slower than I was 23 years ago. My motto used to be “when in doubt, overpower,” but I’m no longer as intoxicated by speed and power as I used to be. These days I’m more interested in reliability and longevity.

Disco diva Donna Summer died last week at 63 after a battle with cancer. She was the Lady Gaga of her day, and though I despised disco at the time, I liked some of her music. She worked hard for the money. Facebook went public last week raising $16 Billion in it’s IPO, the largest ever initial public offering by a US technology company. Should I buy in at $38 per share? I think I’ll leave that to my financial advisor to sort out. I thought “Flutie Flakes” were a good investment, and now have a closet full of stale cereal. Founder Mark Zuckerberg married Priscilla Chan, his companion of the last nine years. What, no pre-nup?

This past week was a momentous one for Shauna‘s family. Her father’s brother had a lot of problems and died of misadventure many years ago. Because of his problems, he never got to know his three children from two failed marriages. For various reasons the ex-wives cut all ties with the Taylor family, and those kids were never given the opportunity to know Shauna’s dad, or their paternal grandparents. I think that’s very sad. It’s a long and complicated story, but the ending is that last Saturday two of those three children met in Toronto at the home of Shauna’s parents, and there was a very happy reunion. A brother and a sister from two marriages had never met, and in fact did not know until recently that they were related. We brought family photographs and old home movies, and although they never got to know their father, they now have an opportunity to know his brother, and some of the mysteries of their past can now be revealed. Vicariously, I eat this stuff up. Shauna has been in contact with the third sibling and will likely meet him in the near future. Life is full of surprises!

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 5/14/12

We’ve had an electrician at our house for a few days last week. He’s been wiring our pump house and arranging for us to re-use a water pump and pressure tank left over from the old cottage. We will use this secondary pump for irrigation, car washing, etc., because we don‘t need water purified through our indoor filtration system to power wash the house. Years ago, this electrician did a lot of work with a big wrecking company in Toronto, and whenever an old building was demolished, he salvaged some of the discarded electrical fixtures. Over the years he has collected some beautiful things and the other day he brought some of them over for us to inspect. We bought four very unique hanging lights for the house, and they have particular meaning to the Taylor family. Shauna’s mom and dad were good friends with Morty Tepperman, one of the principals of that wrecking company, and the lights we bought came directly out of a building down off Front Street, originally built by Consumers Gas Company, and where the Tepperman wrecking company used to have their yard. The electrician had been holding on to these light fixtures for over 25 years, and thought they might look good in our house. He was right, because our house is full of unusual fixtures and furniture. Lately strange coincidences have come up and Shauna and especially her mom believe that it means long lost friends are trying to make contact. There’s a story my mother-in-law likes to tell about her friend Morty Tepperman. He died long before his time from a heart attack, and the Taylors were deeply saddened by the loss. Shauna’s mom was in the hospital for some reason and Morty went to visit her. He brought her some roses, but when he got to the hospital, she had already been released. He died within the next day and never had a chance to deliver the roses. The next Spring, a rose sprung up in Ethel’s garden where no rose was planted. She figures that it was Morty making his presence known.

If you follow this blog you may have noticed that last winter I posted a picture of myself hugging a very large outboard motor at the Toronto Boat Show. While this may have seemed an unusual display of affection to my twelve loyal readers, that wasn’t just any outboard motor; it was the new motor I’d just purchased for my fishing boat. Some time in the next several days I will pick the boat up at our marina rigged with that new outboard, new steering cables, new seat cushions, and a working depth finder (finally). Call it my nautical extreme makeover. I had owned the original Yamaha outboard for over 20 years and while it served me faithfully, the time had come time to trade it in. The old beast was not particularly fuel efficient, it smoked like a chimney, and was extremely hard starting in cold weather. The new motor, although also a 2 stroke (oil and gas are mixed together for fuel) promises to be both fuel efficient, cleaner running, and easy to start. I love power boating, and I look forward to logging some quality time in the new and improved craft.

I believe I may have finally solved the how-to-keep-my-newly-required-eyeglasses-from-disappearing conundrum, and you can all breathe a collective sigh of relief. I’m having trouble getting used to the fact that I need to wear glasses now for reading, and I often forget to carry them with me. This in turn causes me to curse and complain incessantly, annoying anyone around me. It's  becoming a bigger and bigger problem, as I become blinder by the minute. I can’t stand those things that hang loosely around my neck and attach to my glasses, and every time I bend over they drop off. Same goes for my shirt pocket or just about anywhere else I keep them. I have 20 pairs of dollar store glasses lying around all over the house, but they’re never there when I need them. Today, while we were in purchasing Shauna’s new glasses, I noticed the owner of the store wearing unusual reading glasses, that actually split in half at the nose piece. They re-connect with a magnet and, when not in use, wrap around my neck. I bought a pair and they may do the trick. At least they don’t fall off when I bend over. I still don’t like having to keep reading glasses on my person, but this may be a tolerable solution.

If you thought the financial fallout was a thing of the past, guess again. Last week investment giant JP Morgan Chase announced a $2 Billion loss resulting from some bad risk assessment. Oops. While Greece and Spain teeter on the brink of insolvency, threatening to take the rest of Europe with them, and the North American “recovery” is stuck in first gear, this kind of news isn’t encouraging. Looks like Biff might not be getting that new BMW for graduation after all. What we need is a healthy infusion of denial on Wall Street, just like the good old days.



Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 5/7/12

As Spring peeks through the grey clouds of the past week, I notice that we have some new visitors out on our lake. Two baby loons have taken up residence in the waters near our house and this makes me happy. With their beautiful markings and melodious call, loons are probably my favorite local birds. Unlike the noisy over population of Canadian geese, who honk incessantly and leave their piles of crap everywhere, loons are a welcome addition to our lake. They seem to thrive here, unlike some of the other lakes up here overrun with “personal watercrafts.” Apparently, the wakes from jet skis are tough on baby loons. I know what you’re thinking, that I’m acting like Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond. I have one thing to say you. Pooh! I’ve become a bird lover, which is something I never thought I‘d become. On the other hand, I am not a squirrel lover. Last week I received my “Yard Sentinel,” the latest in my so far ineffective arsenal of rodent-busting weapons. In my never ending squirrel eradication campaign, I am desperately grasping at all straws. The Yard Sentinel is an electronic device designed to emit an ultrasonic noise bothersome to rodents. I set it for the proper frequency, plugged it in a placed it out in the yard, but I think the f-ing thing is attracting them. It certainly isn’t not driving them away. And while I was expecting it to emit some inaudible high pitched sound, it makes noises like predatory birds. I could do that. No more Mr. Nice Guy, it’s time for Plan B. I’ll let you know what Plan B is when I figure it out.

Believe it or not, I have a big problem with animal abuse of any sort. In truth, I wouldn’t knowingly make even a squirrel suffer. A friend of ours down in Florida named Lois used to take in retired race horses and rehabilitate them, after which she placed them in good homes. It was a difficult job, because it was expensive (she barely made enough to cover her expenses), She had no help, and it was emotionally and physically taxing. Some of those horses had been badly abused. My mom and dad were avid equestrians but not big fans of horse racing, specifically because of the mistreatment of some of the animals. They felt many thoroughbreds were raced too young, before their bones were fully developed, and this caused sometimes fatal accidents. Last week I read a disturbing article in the NY Times about the problem, with the general message that the problem has escalated with the infusion of casino gambling money. With higher purses, there is more inclination for owners to put injured animals on the track, loaded up with painkillers and other drugs, and this has resulted in an astounding escalation in serious accidents and on-track euthanasia. All in all it’s dangerous for the jockeys and horribly cruel to the horses. Money talks and the horses suffer. As often happens, the regulatory agencies put in place to avoid this kind of animal cruelty have been ineffective, and it was actually the jockeys who finally made a stand. Everyone thinks in terms of the big races and assumes that most race horses are expensive, pampered animals. In truth, the majority of race horses are not big money makers, and stories of abuse to “claim race” horses, the lower end of the racehorse spectrum, are becoming more and more common.

Final notes. In the let’s-get-real department, there was a ferry disaster in Guwahati India, in the northeastern part of the country, wherein 103 drown when an overloaded ferry sunk in bad weather. I read about these accidents all the time, and it amazes me what is not considered hard news in America. Snookie’s expanding waist line and Newt Gingrich’s campaign debts are front page news in North America, but this tragedy rated one paragraph on some inside page of the NY Times. Can you imagine if that disaster had happened in America? It would certainly be front page news, and Elton John would write a song about it. Adam Yauch, a/k/a “MCA” and founding member of the seminal hip hop group The Beastie Boys died last week at 47 from a rare for of cancer of the salivary gland. I was never a fan of the band, but from what I’ve read about him post mortem, Yauch was a very interesting guy, and nothing like his onstage persona.

Gotta go … time to sharpen my hatchet and “get medieval” on some squirrels. Don’t worry, I’ll be humane and make it quick.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 4/30/12

With all the mild weather of the past several months, I got spoiled and I think my blood thinned out as well. As I begin this report on Tuesday morning, the snow is blowing horizontally across our lake and the temperature hovers stubbornly at 32F. There go the perennials. Of course, this is typical April weather up here in the GWN, but with the anomalous Spring we are experiencing, I figured I’d be boating by now. Looks like we’ll be sucking up a little more propane before the heating season takes its last gasp. That’s what I love about Spring in the Great White North; you get teased into thinking it has arrived just in time for that surprise snowstorm.

I walked into the local hardware store this weekend and bumped into my pal Harvey, our snowplow guy. Harvey is presently having a mouse problem and was looking for mousetraps. One summer, early in our construction process, perhaps 2007, we had a major mouse problem up here in the GWN. At the time we were living in a camper trailer and there were plenty of access holes for little critters. Jasper went nuts, because she could hear them scampering around in the duct work. I killed at least sixty mice that summer, mostly in the kitchen. There’s nothing like pouring some corn flakes into a bowl and having a dead mouse drop out. Puts you right off cereal. I hope Harvey’s weekend purchase is not an early warning for Mouse-aggeddon - Season Two. I’ll say this, mouse trap technology has come a long way since those crappy hard-to-set wooden ones. I only had one trap but I was a mouse killing machine. We’ve only had one mouse since we moved in to the new house, but it’s amazing what one little mouse can do. Somehow this thing got into our furnace duct work and ended up blocking the condensation vent pipe, eventually destroying the fan motor and costing us a lot of money.

Speaking of pesky rodents, the other day, I put in my order for a Yard Sentinel, an electronic pest control device which emit’s an adjustable high frequency sound apparently bothersome to pests. I can adjust the frequency it emits based on the pest we are targeting. I am told it will not bother Jasper, but I think it probably will. From the same company I also bought a device which plugs into a wall socket and then uses the wiring in the house to emit a similar onerous high frequency. That particular device is advertised as a bug repellant as well. Wouldn’t that be something? Reviews are mixed on these ultrasonic pest control devices, but two people, including the squirrel consultant we hired said they had some success with them. My friend Doug from Chicago said it was the only thing that worked for him. At this point I’m willing to try anything and we are going to attack this squirrel problem from several different directions. One of the problems with our house is that we don’t have an attic, only a 12” airspace under the roof deck. About half that space is filled in with spray foam insulation, which of course the squirrels dig out for their nests. It‘s proving tough to get the buggers out once they‘re in. On second thought, perhaps the flame thrower is a good idea.

In the news, beloved Royals Will and Kate have been married a year, and still no baby. George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer accused of the unjustified shooting Trayvon Martin, is out on $150,000 bail, and whatever it cost him for the flak vest. He and Casey Anthony should get a room together at the Grey Bar Hilton; that might be the only place they’ll be safe. Who needs a trial, we’ll just judge everyone in the court of public opinion.

Today is tax deadline day in Canada, perhaps it’s time I start thinking about filing my return, I only have a few hours left.

　

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 4/23/12

Last week we called in a professional consultant for our squirrel problem. I was not aware that there were squirrel consultants, but apparently they exist. This gentleman confirmed our worst fears about the size of the problem and the difficulty in eradicating it. The issues are twofold. One, we must ensure all the little bastards are out of the roof before we seal, and two, we must figure out how to seal up some of the more inaccessible access points. One crevice in particular we will need a Houdini to fit into. To complicate matters, we have three kinds of rodents: black squirrels, flying squirrels, and possibly (likely) bats. The fact that two of these are nocturnal is not helpful. I am quite sure I heard some wing fwapping noises in there amongst the other unnatural sounds. Now that we’ve actually seen the flying squirrels screwing, and noting that the gestation period for these rodents is rather short, and further having been informed that mommy squirrels will chew through metal to get to their litter once pups are born, this is looking like a bigger problem than originally anticipated. Our squirrel consultant was less than enthusiastic about taking our job and I think he quoted high for his service. We must devise our plan of attack. Any way we slice it, it will be expensive. I’m inclined to go with flame throwers, and the RPGs, but automatic weapons may be called for as well. Thank goodness neither the Burk’s Falls Fire Dept. nor the Humane Society reads this blog. By the way, as I suspected, it is somewhat illegal to kill squirrels. The red ones are apparently used as fur liners. Not exactly top of the line fur, more of your Wal-Mart fur, but subject to regulations nonetheless.

Norwegian nut job Anders Breivik, accused of killing 77 people, 69 of them by hunting them down and shooting them, is claiming self defense. Apparently he is not a fan of multi-culturalism and feels threatened by the infusion of Islamic influence in his country. He wants to be declared sane, because he feels his message will be de-legitimized if he is deemed incompetent. He said we need to differentiate between political extremism and insanity. Kind of a grey area if you ask me. If convicted, Breivik faces Norway’s harshest sentence; a year in jail and no TV for a month.

Da French are presently in the middle of a presidential election and incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy faces some formidable opposition from socialist candidate Francois Hollande. It would be the first commie in a while for France. The first round has Hollande leading by a small margin, and now the two candidates will face each other in a bug-eating contest and a sing off, after which there will be a final vote on May 6^th. Text your vote.  Hollande wouldn’t have even been a contender had his predecessor, that hound dog Dominic Strauss Kahn kept his pants on.

It’s snowing up here in the Great White North as I finish this report, and the timing is perfect. I just put the dock down and both Shauna and I just had the winter tires taken off our cars. Do you think we’ve jumped the gun on Spring?

　

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 4/16/12

I get emails from friends all over the country, and some are funny, some are sad. One came the other day that I really was not expecting. We became friends with the stone mason who did all the stone work on our house, and we kept in touch with him and his wife Rachael after they moved back out to Calgary, Alberta. They’d had great difficulty conceiving but finally had a healthy baby boy just before they left Ontario. We heard that Rachael was pregnant again, due sometime this month, and the other day we got an email message from Mark saying he was looking for a rebate from the midwife. Apparently, last week, Rachael went into labor prematurely and before the midwife could be summoned, Mark was charged with the task of delivering their baby girl. By the time he called the midwife, the baby was crowning. Talk about stepping up! The description of the experience was unbelievable. The email came with a picture of the swaddled newborn nestled safely in Mom’s arms, with the family dog at her side mugging for the camera. These people are serious outdoorsmen and have already planned their first camping trip with the newborn, probably in a few weeks. Call me when those kids can skin a rabbit.

With my fancy schmancy new phone I can allegedly send photo attachments along with my text messages, something I’ve never done before. Today I tried it out for the first time. I sent a picture to my niece and nephew of me giving my old Bell phone the finger. An hour later it’s still trying to send the message. We live in an area with limited cell service and I imagine that a picture file might be impossible to send from here. Oh well. My message was in response to a message they’d sent me. It included cute picture of their little girl catching her first fish with her genuine pink Bass Pro Barbie fishing pole. I still maintain that Barbie would never fish. Maybe Barbie’s lesbian girl friend Scooter would fish, but not Barbie. She could break a nail. Cute picture nonetheless.

 
Veteran newsman Mike Wallace passed away last week at the age of 93 and I watched the 60 Minutes tribute last night. Confronting Johnny Carson about his drinking problems, calling Iran’s Ayatolla Khomeini a lunatic on camera, and making Barbara Streisand cry, Wallace was the king of the in-your-face interview. Whether he was questioning crooks, movie stars, or CEOs, Wallace had a gift for asking the tough questions, and we all enjoyed watching the respondents squirm. My favorite clip that they aired was of Wallace when he interviewed John Ehrlichman. Wallace went through a laundry list of illegal acts committed by the Nixon administration, and Ehrlichman just looked at him blankly and asked, “Is there a question in there?”

Rick Santorum, the man once characterized in a Google search as a disgusting by-product of gay sex, and the unwitting barometer for how out far to the right a disturbing number of Americans are leaning, bowed out of the Republican race last week. Gingrich (sounds like gum disease to me) is also reportedly out of money and on the ropes, leaving Mitt Romney the projected winner of the Republican nod. Lucky him. Now that the other bozos have jumped off the bus shortly before it glides off a cliff, Romney can now go down with his ship. Sorry about the mixed metaphor, but …

Speaking of sinking ships, last week marked the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and what better way to commemorate the event than to have director James Cameron come out with a 3D version of his award winning movie Titanic. Luddite that I am, I have yet to see a 3D movie. George Zimmerman will be criminally charged in the murder of Trayvon Martin, but since the best witness is dead, and other eyewitnesses give conflicting, unreliable accounts, there’s a good chance he will go free. If Zimmerman is acquitted, watch out America. And finally, here’s a fun fact: probably due to the economic crisis, suicides are way up in Western Europe. From 2007 -2009  they're up 24% in Greece, and up 50% from 2005-2010 in Italy. How is it that an individual can go to jail for cheating on his or her taxes, but governments routinely squander fortunes in horribly irresponsible ways and it’s the taxpayer who always suffers? Twalk amongst yusselves.



Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 4/8/12

Last week, before heading down to Buffalo for the final push, I bit the byte and reluctantly procured a new LG Droid smart phone. As anyone who follows this blog knows, I do not willingly embrace new technology, but my 6 year old flip phone became unreliable and needed to be replaced. To complicate matters, my coverage plan is no longer offered, and the new plans typically offer features I don’t want. Heavens to Betsy there are a lot of plans! Do I want unlimited texting, and free weekends and evening calling? Do I want 500MB of data, or more, so I can read the NY Times on a 4 inch screen? Do I need 150 or 500 “anytime” minutes? And there are “apps” for everything. My Droid came loaded with 50 of them, none which I anticipate using. The other day I read that there is an app to let you know if you are too drunk to drive. Just plug in how many drinks you’ve had, your size and weight, within what time frame, and your phone will beep at you when you’re good to drive. Amazing. All those science fiction stories about the robots and computers taking over … as far as I can tell, it’s already happening. And I’m not sure why they call them smart phones, because they make me feel stupid. This new one certainly is more complicated than my old flip phone, and too big to comfortably fit in my pocket. I changed my cell phone carrier as well and am now one of Sir Richard Branson’s bitches. Within the next year or so I expect to be able to operate this new phone, but for now I’m a bit lost. I downloaded the 72 page phone book of instructions from the internet, and there are four pages devoted to safe cell phone use (i.e. if you develop a brain tumor, don’t call us … especially on your cell phone) but some of the most basic features are poorly explained. For instance, there is no proper description of how to enter contact information, an important feature for me. In fact I fooled around with the new phone for hours before I figured out how to move from one data field to another, or how to make a new entry. I’m sure that the nineteen year nose-bejeweled-skateboard-junkie-with-the-attention-span-of-a-Golden-Retriever writer of said manual assumed I was smarter or more intuitive than I am. That said, I have now joined the legions of the incessantly pre-occupied. Soon I will be a texting maniac. You will likely read about me in the newspaper when, completely oblivious, I step off a curb into heavy traffic, only to get squashed like a possum, probably while attempting to text someone some pearl of wisdom such as “R U O.K? Real ironic, huh?

I am writing this on Good Friday, or for us Jews, the first night of Pesach. Tonight we head down to Toronto to have our first night Seder supper with Shauna’s parents. Essentially, my side of the family is disintegrating, the glue holding us together having finally dissolved. Without “American” Thanksgiving to bring the Oppenheimer side together in Buffalo, I doubt there will be any future gatherings. I do have cousins, nieces and nephews scattered around the globe, many of whom I am fond, but in step with the relentless march of time, most of them have jobs, and lives, and families, and perfectly legitimate excuses not to keep in touch. One of the reasons I write this report is to send out the beacon that I’m still here, if anyone wants to know. Lately, I’ve been reaching out to more of my friends and relatives, sending them pertinent family photos or mementoes I salvaged from the Chapin clean out. I’m probably a more frequent correspondent that most people I know, and I still practice the ancient art of writing (in full sentences). I got that from my dad; he wrote wonderful letters. It used to bother me that only a handful of my recipients reciprocate, but it doesn’t so much anymore. I write because I love to write. That’s why I write songs. It's certainly not for a listening audience from whom I feel increasingly estranged. I’ve learned that communication is in and of itself a destination, and I suppose it gives me a sense of meaning at a time when I desperately need to find some.

If this week’s report seems a bit philosophical, or worse yet, self-justifying, my apologies. I kind of melted down last week, and had I not had the unfailing support of my wife and a few close friends, it might have turned ugly. All the grief I have staved off these past few years, subliminally repressed in my relentless drive to “do the right thing” has come welling up like a tidal wave of emotion, and now I cry like a baby at the drop of a hat. Here’s my shout out to all of my missing-in-action friends and relatives. I’m not much of a phone guy. You will not likely be receiving copious texts from me, nor can you expect a cell phone call, unless perhaps you live in Canada, or you call me (I no longer have the “North America Plan” ). I’m not a big Facebook user, I don’t tweet, and I’m not interesting enough to write a decent book. But to all twelve of you out there, I’ve been spilling my guts in this report weekly for over twenty years, and when cell phones become obsolete, I will likely still be doing this; that is, sending my inane thoughts out into the vacuum of cyberspace as if I am the last man on earth.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 4/2/12

A belated April Fools Day to my twelve loyal readers. Last year I recounted some of the legendary April Fool’s jokes, but what about simple ones? Personally, I like the tie-the-dollar-to-the-fishing-line-and-hide-in-the-bushes trick. Did any of you see that Betty White show with the codgers playing practical jokes? Some of them were pretty funny.

Because I was not clear in my last report, and with reference to the Trayvon Martin killing a few weeks ago, I am not defending Zimmerman’s behavior; I think it was deplorable. It’s looking more and more like this was an unjust murder, and perhaps it was racially motivated. Three out of four Americans think that Zimmerman should have been charged with murder by the police. I don’t know what really happened here but I know profiling and racial injustice are a big problem in the United States. My only point was that celebrities and even the President jumped on this and threw gas on the fire. It sure looks like someone dropped the ball here, or the justice system failed, and the mere fact that vigilante rage was unleashed nationwide is evidence that this is a big and perhaps growing problem. It doesn’t help matters that Florida is an NRA sanctuary, one of the shoot-first-ask-questions-later states, and the “Stand Your Ground” law, while intended to give victims a chance to fight back, seems like it has serious potential to be misinterpreted. Kill whomever you want and then claim it was self defense. We go back to the ever-present gun debate: if guns are outlawed then only criminals will have guns vs. the right to bear arms is obsolete and not meant to provide justification for 300 Million Americans to carry assault rifles. I want to believe that Zimmerman’s dubious claim of self defense can be discredited in a court of law, if he’s even charged, but if not, then perhaps it’s time to change this problematic law. I understand the rage and indignation, but that doesn’t mean we should turn the killer over to a bunch of anti-Semitic vigilantes like The New Black Panther Party. That mob justice is no more civilized than what Zimmerman was accused of doing. I also don’t think Obama weighing in on this was at all helpful. It’s divisive and just what the Democrats would argue they are not. It also begs the question, do we want politicians acting as our moral compass? Seems oxymoronic to me.

Beach combers be on the look out. An unmanned Japanese fishing trawler was recently spotted off the West Coast of North America, over a year after the earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan, suggesting that the impending debris field is a little ahead of schedule. The philandering Tiger Woods won his first PGA tournament since 2009, and I’m so happy for him. Speaking of philanderers, last week former IMF hound dog Dominic Strauss-Kahn was charged with “aggravated pimping,” (hee hee) and I wasn’t even aware he drove a 1975 Monte Carlo with the “continental kit” and the genuine fake fur steering wheel. Of course he denied the charges, claiming he had no idea the pretty young girls at that party were paid to please. Sounds like a political smear campaign to me. Lots of pretty young girls prefer arrogant shriveled up old men to handsome younger men.

Tonight will be the last night I spend in my family home of 53 years. Tomorrow I head north and the next time I visit Buffalo, we will likely stay in a hotel. The closing is scheduled to be some time next week. Within several days the rest of the remaining items in the house will be cleared away and we will leave the new owners with an empty, “broom clean” house. Tabula Rasa. So many of my peers are now facing (or have already faced) the journey I have just completed. It was a long, emotional grind. I suppose it wouldn’t have been as hard had I not had such wonderful parents. On to the next leg of my journey.

The Oppenheimer Report - 3/26/12

The ice is off our little lake and last week the mercury soared to 80 degrees F … and that was up here  in the Great White North! Records were set across the Northeast for high temperatures and I’m a little concerned. Harvey, the guy who plows our road in the winter says his maple syrup production is way down this year, and we’re getting mosquitoes in March. What’s up? When does it start to rain frogs?

Further to the discussion last week about the estate sale at my parents’ house, it made me feel good when so many people came up to me during the sale to speak fondly of my parents and of their selfless contributions to the local community. One comment about the liquidation phase of an estate: be wary of the armchair quarterbacks. Everyone is an expert, and a lot of people may think they know better than you what something is worth. Before we sold anything, I did my due diligence, hiring several independent appraisers, seeking the advice of friends who know a thing or two about art values, and generally apprising myself of the markets for various big ticket items. That which sold for x amount twenty years ago may be worth less today. Mom had beautiful furniture, but some of it was not particularly valuable locally. The one sucker punch I did not see coming was an encounter with a woman who had made a lowball offer on our house, angered because we hadn’t countered. She came to the estate sale specifically to let me know she would have offered more. What she did not know was that we had several other concurrent offers much closer to market value, with earnest money deposits (hers was insulting), and I and our agent made the executive decision about which offer to counter. I did not take her bait, and merely gave this inconsiderate woman a simpleton’s smile and a “you-snooze-you-lose” shrug. The house was sold to the highest, most creditworthy bidder, end of story. That she chose to hit me with her nonsense as my home of fifty-three years was being cleaned out displayed a complete lack of class. While I am comfortable with almost every decision I made with regards to my parents’ estate, there is always somebody out there ready to tell me I did it wrong. In the end, I did everything I did with as much information as I could gather, and always with my parents’ wishes in the back of my mind. While it was not important to our acceptance of their offer, I like the new buyers and am comforted with the notion that decent people with two young kids will be the new owners of my parents’ house. I wish them all the happiness I experienced there.

Last Sunday was absolutely beautiful in Buffalo and I’m sure there was a huge turnout for Buffalo’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. By the end of the day, after I was through packing up the car, I cycled around town for an hour. All the drunken attendees were walking home from the parade and I was sorry I didn’t have my camera on hand. From my experience the Buffalo parade goers are generally well behaved, probably because Buffalonians are ninja drinkers. Still, there were several amusing displays of public intoxication. By contrast, in London, Ontario there was a huge alcohol-fueled riot on St. Patrick’s Day, prompting numerous arrests and causing substantial property damage. In a neighborhood with a large student population from local Fanshawe College, about 1000 rioters, many of them drunk, threw fireballs, bricks, and beer bottles at riot police, destroying property and looting the homes of local residents. The good news is that some of these so-called students incriminated themselves on Twitter and Facebook, posting videos of their “merry making” for all to see. This of course made it easy for police to tag them, and it makes me wonder what the boys and girls are learning in school these days. Certainly it’s not common sense. “Hey, let’s record ourselves attacking the police, looting houses, and blowing up vans … it’ll be cool!” The same thing happened at the G-20 summit in Toronto last summer; many of the worst offenders were recorded committing crimes and were eventually caught and charged. These days, when every cell phone is a camera, and when there are traffic cameras mounted at major intersections, isn’t it foolish to assume one can commit a violent act in a public place with impunity?

Finally, former V.P Dick Vader-Cheney just got a new heart and some would say it’s his first. Canadians chose their new NDP (New Democratic Party, or commie pinko) leader to fill deceased icon Jack Layton’s shoes. Racial tensions heated up in Orlando Florida in reaction to the death of 17 year old Trayvon Martin, a black teen, shot to death by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, allegedly in self defense. Was it really the hoodie? The way everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, I am reminded of Bonfire of the Vanities. Keep your eyes peeled for those raining frogs!

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 3/19/12

As I begin this report, I am staring at the bare walls of the house I once called a home. After the past five years, after all the last stages of my parents’ lives, all the nurses and doctors, the health care issues, the crash course in gerontology, the insurance paperwork, the bills and house maintenance issues, the bank accounts, the estate matters, the lawyers and accountants, after finding the right guy to do the estate sale and arranging to have furniture shipped to four remote locations …. after all this, I’m now staring at an empty house. Last Friday and Saturday I attended the estate sale at my parents’ house. I think the estate guy was a little nervous that I’d be one of those family members who could not bear to part with any of the memories, and I suppose a lot of people are like that. But by the time the estate sale took place I had done my grieving, and I was prepared to let go of what was left. I had already picked out some my favorite furniture and mementoes, and so had my sister and her family. As well we gave some stuff to people who had been good to our parents, so much of what was left was not particularly meaningful to either of us.

That said, it is weird to watch people, dealers or bargain hunters, rummaging through anything and everything that is not nailed down in what was once your family home. I wandered around, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, watching and listening to what people had to say. At one point I put my digital camera down on a table for an instant and some woman grabbed it like it the last new IPhone on the shelf at the Apple store. I politely asked her to give it back, perhaps followed by an expletive deleted. I have never before attended an estate sale, but I can safely say that I have not seen that many people in this big old house since my mom used to host the annual International Horse Show party thirty or forty years ago. Hundreds walked through the house, and some just wanted to see what the house looked like, but others were clearly looking for buried treasure. One guy was walking around with a little flash light peering into every nook and cranny. By day two, the big stuff was gone and it was time for the real bargain hunters to start rummaging. The strangest people came through. One guy, dressed a little like what Elvis would look like if he were an appliance repairman, headed straight for the basement and snagged the 50 year old Frigidaire. Somebody else bought the 32 year-old 2-head VCR. I failed to mention to the new owner that it could only recognize recording dates up to and including 1999. Ten bucks. Caveat emptor. By the end of the second day, I found myself searching for a lamp by which to read in the den, because every light in the room had been sold and there was no overhead light. In short, the whole two day adventure was “enlightening,” and I enjoyed seeing who bought what. As I finish this report, I’ve returned home to Jasper Bark Lodge in the Great White North, and I‘m pretty beat. I’ll say this, I think the people who ran the sale did a good job.

Final note, a propos to nothing … forget about paper money, there’s a new currency in town. Watching the news the other night, I learned that criminals are stealing Liquid Tide detergent from supermarkets to sell on the black market, sometimes for drugs. Now I’ve heard everything. Regrettably, I’ve got a full bottle of Era which nobody chose to buy at the estate sale. Era’s good too you know.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 3/12/12

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

We got back up to the Great White North last Monday, and what a lovely trip it was! I knew we were in trouble when we had difficulty even getting to the border. We sat on the service road leading up to The Peace Bridge entrance to Canada for over an hour while the cops swept the plaza for a bomb after a threat was called in. That wait was made a little more tedious by the fact that we were hauling my landscape trailer packed with stuff from Mom and Dad’s house, maneuvering onto a service road when every other ticked off stress puppy was vying for the same lane. I now have a little more respect for truck drivers and the difficulties they face competing with inconsiderate drivers in heavy traffic. At least it was a sunny day.

With all the crazy storms that occurred last week, including the ones that spawned those destructive F4 tornadoes in Southern Illinois, our little community in Northern Ontario had its own crazy winter weather with which to contend. Rain, then freezing rain, and finally copious amounts of snow wreaked havoc on the Muskokas and points north, and our propane supplier was unable to get down our drive to fill up our tank. To boot, we had a substantial local power outage, probably due to all the ice, which further taxed our diminishing propane supply (we have a propane-fired generator that kicks on whenever the power goes out). The day after our return, there was a thaw and then another freeze, making road conditions even more treacherous. A week later we’re back to rain and much warmer weather, and now the issue is flooding. I don’t trust those lying groundhogs anymore, but I know Jack Frost is on the ropes when the guy across the lake takes in his ice fishing hut. He did that a few days ago. I think I speak for all of us when I say, Yo, Mother Nature, will you make up your mind? I actually started wearing those attachable spikes on the bottom of my boots, because I got tired of having Jasper drag me slipping and sliding up and down our icy driveway. She thinks she’s a sled dog, and she’s strong.

Once again it sucks to be a Maple Leafs fan, as my hockey team negotiates the second half of their season like an Italian cruise ship captain. Once again, and true to form, they’re choking long before the playoffs. To rub salt into the wound, they’ll probably get hot at the very end, when they haven’t a prayer of making the playoffs . When I started paying attention to the standings, as I do after mid-season, the Buffalo Sabres were fumbling around just behind the Leafs in the standings and looking pretty pitiful. Now the Sabres are on a roll, and in contention for playoff position, just as it looks as if the Leafs will for the seventh time fail to make the playoffs. I really thought this was going to be the turnaround year. A seven season draught! Arguably the Toronto Maple Leafs have the best and most loyal fans in the NHL, and I take my hat off to the Maple Leafs organization; they have set a new world’s record for disappointing their shell-shocked fans. Go Ottawa.

I watched celebrity crash n’ burn Lindsay Lohan make her comeback appearance return to SNL. We were down in Buffalo when it aired, but I’d PVR’d it (because I’m Joe Tech) and we watched it last Saturday. I applaud Lohan’s public relations team for getting her the gig. The show lampooned her troubles with the law and that’s the recipe for a comeback: embrace your dysfunction. Let the star who has not shoplifted, had a chronic drug problem, or temporarily lost his or her mind cast the first aspersion. I love skit comedy and in my opinion the SNL writing has improved appreciably over the past few years. The Lohan show was pretty funny overall, but I thought our little shoplifting coke addict stumbled over her lines and looked a little nervous and shaky. I give her six months and she’ll be back in the driver’s seat and ready for her next dip into the cesspool of success.

What else is in the news … while Southern Illinois cleans up in the aftermath of all those destructive tornadoes, I saw on the news that parts of England are experiencing the worst drought in decades.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s controversial pardon of 200 criminals was upheld in a court of law, fanning the indignation of Mississippians and making me wonder whether perhaps it might be prudent to take that power away from governors. Syria is a mess, and once again Israel and Palestine are making headlines. Last week marked the one year anniversary of the big earthquake in Japan, and as I watched the videos of towns and cities being washed away by the big tsunami, I wondered what something like that would do to the East Coast of the U.S. Perhaps it will be a tsunami, or a hurricane, but sooner or later our over-developed coast line is going to take another major hit. One thing I'll guarantee: when it happens, we’ll receive more coverage than Japan or Haiti ever did.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 

The Oppenheimer Report - 3/5/12

A few years ago, shortly before the Oppenheimer family Corgi “Tuppence” expired, she was out in the back yard and killed a possum. How that arthritic old dog killed a rather large wild animal is beyond me, but one of the nurses witnessed it. Then she called 911. Not once, not twice, but three times. The first time she called to tell them about the dead possum, second time to tell them that the dead possum had apparently been “playing possum” and had mysteriously moved, and the third time she called to confirm that the afore-mentioned possum was in fact dead, again. I’m so glad that my parents’ telephone number is now in the 911 database for registered kooks. You hear a lot of stories about people ass dialing 911 - it’s a big problem these days - but there are just as many clueless people who call in emergencies that are anything but. I don’t think a dead possum rates as an emergency, tragic though it may seem. To make this event even more ludicrous, our over-zealous 911 caller put the expired possum in one of our blue recycling boxes. Thankfully, one of the other nurses had the presence of mind to have the animal disposed of properly before garbage day, because I don’t think the garbage collectors would have appreciated having to remove a 15 pound dead possum, legs sticking stiffly out of the blue box. Last I checked, dead possums did not fall into the “recyclables“ category. Although, come to think of it, they are bio-degradable. I wish I’d snapped a picture of that possum in the blue box. And while on the ongoing subject of wild life, or death as the case may be, you will recall my crow crap fest from last week. I finally gave in and, after manually cleaning off most of the big chunks, paid a visit to Delta Sonic car wash. Shortly after returning home with my uncharacteristically clean car, it happened, again; I was “crowed” a second time! Fun fact: I’ve heard of a gaggle of geese, but did you know that an assembly of these nefarious black crappers is referred to as a murder of crows. I think I called their assault on my car a mob hit, so I wasn't far off. One of my twelve, well-informed, loyal readers pointed it out to me. Once again I am a learning machine.

Monkees lead singer Davy Jones is dead at 66. I watched close friend and fellow Monkee Mickey Dolenz speak fondly of Jones on Pierce Morgan the other night. I never knew Jones had once been an aspiring jockey. I used to watch The Monkees television sitcom religiously. And speaking of religion, Mitt Romney almost lost in  his home state of Michigan. I suppose it doesn’t matter much because the Republicans have pretty much shot themselves in the balls. The mere fact that bible-thumping bozo Rick Santorum is a front runner, and gave Romney a run for his money (and we all know Mitt has money) is strong evidence to me that the elephants are on the ropes. There are even rumblings that the GOP is scrambling to convince Geb Bush to enter the race. That would make it official, wouldn't it? Three Bushes constitutes a Bush league. Sorry, I had to try that one out. Anyhow, clearly desperation is in the air! To hammer a nail into their coffin, enter that ever-entertaining bloated bastion of ultra-conservatism, Rush Limbaugh, who last week declared on air, in front of millions of listeners, that women’s rights spokeswoman Sandra Fluke was a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Fluke had recently gone before Congress to speak in favor of birth control insurance coverage, and apparently Mr. Limbaugh did not approve. He claimed he was joking, but I think he crossed the line. There are kooks and zealots on both sides of the aisle, but I think the Republican party has steered way too far to the right and gone completely off the rails. It’s official, I’m switching my political status to “Independent” because in my humble opinion, the elephants have lost their minds. All that remains is to watch them eat their young and perhaps burn a homosexual at the stake on live television. Stay tuned to Fox, I’m sure they‘ll cover it. Please tell me this, when did clowns like Santorum become the moral compass for America? Nincompoops.

A murder of crows, a parliament of owls, A Flock of Seagulls (with bad hair) … what does one call a gathering of dodos? Extinct.



Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 2/27/12

We’re still down in Buffalo cleaning out my parents’ house. I learned a new meaning for a word today. I’ve heard the verb “to crow” used to describe a certain kind of utterance. “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!” he crowed. The other day, while down in Buffalo I noticed a convergence of the ubiquitous black birds flocking to the trees surrounding our house. There were hundreds of them. I thought it was strange, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen this. It never occurred to me that perhaps they were out for revenge. My black car was parked in the driveway, and when I went out to put it in the garage, I found that it had been “crowed” from hood to bumper. I think every crow in the trees around our house decided to crap on my car. It was Monty Python-esque … as if someone had poured buckets of off white paint over the top of my car. Absolutely deeees-gusting. Remember those seagull attacks I spoke of last summer? Then we have the flying squirrels screwing right in front of Shauna and me, looking us directly in the eye. And now, the crows perform this guano mob hit on my car. What is it with me and the critters? Did I somehow heinously offend some higher up in the animal kingdom in this or a past life, and now this is my payback? Crows are allegedly smart birds, so I have to believe that this was pre-meditated.

We’re about a quarter of the way through the daunting task of cleaning out my parent’s house. Soon there will be an estate sale, probably some time in late March, and while my sister and I have fairly well established what each of us wanted from the house, there are 54 years of memories to pore through. I found an old photograph I’d never seen before. It looks as if it was taken by a professional, and it is of four women representing four generations of Dad's side of the family: my father’s sister, her first daughter, Dad's mother, and her mother. I’d never seen a photo of Dad’s maternal grandmother before. It took Shauna several weeks to go through all the stuff in her aunt’s apartment before we cleaned it out and returned to the landlord “broom clean.” Our house is about five times as large as that apartment, and every closet and cabinet is full of memories. While working in Dad’s dressing room, I found a storage compartment I’d never noticed high above a built in chest of drawers. In it I found an old yellowed newspaper, a copy of The Buffalo Evening News, and it looked as if it had never been opened up. It was dated November 22, 1963 and the headline read “ Kennedy Dead, Shot By Sniper in Texas.” Dad probably put it up there as a sort of time capsule, and that is just the kind of thing my father might do, knowing that that paper would likely be found by the person cleaning out the house after he was gone. It was only visible from a step ladder.

I had a long talk with an old friend the other day who just happened to be visiting Buffalo at the same time we were there, and we got on the subject of the teachings of Dr. John Sarno and the mind-body connection. This friend has had a tough time over the past several years, suffering from a constellation of painful illnesses, and he has wrestled with the subsequent depression that often accompanies pain. Shauna has been struggling with chronic pain for almost as long as I’ve know her, and the subject resonated with me. Pain is the body’s messenger; it warns us when we need to address a trauma. More and more frequently I’m seeing people suffering from auto-immune related illnesses, or suffering from pain that is not being treated effectively with conventional medicine. Like so many other illnesses, we address the symptoms but not the root causes. I look on helplessly as my wife suffers terribly from what has been diagnosed as Fibromyalgia (FMS) and Chronic Myofacial Pain (CMP). Dr. Sarno categorized Fibromyalgia as a subset of a wider set of ailments he refers to as TMS. His theory is basically that this cornucopia of ailments has its origins in the brain. Of course all pain is referred from the brain, but his unconventional theory is that these mysterious illnesses are an attempt by the brain to protect us from some unacceptable truth. That’s an huge oversimplification, and to tell a pain sufferer that his or her pain is psychosomatic is not helpful. Still Sarno has had some notable success at treating chronic pain sufferers, and I think his theories are worth examining. That said, I do not understand why so many of us are getting sick this way. Perhaps it’s environmental, or perhaps we are simply not coping with our increasingly complex society. Maybe, like those polemic aliens in War of the Worlds, we the “superior” species have advanced technologically, only to be destroyed by the something simple for which we were simply unprepared. Food for thought.



Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 2/22/12

O.K., I apologize in advance for this, but there is more squirrel news. I know, I know, get a life. I already have one thank you: chief cook and exterminator. The other night Shauna called me up to the bedroom rather excited and implored me to look out the window at our eaves. You may recall if you’ve been following this blog that I have for almost a month now been on a mission to eradicate the red squirrel population on our property. While I have not seen any red squirrels lately, the other night there were the familiar scampering noises in our roof, and I was emotionally preparing for another round of squirrel genocide. Now we have a new problem! There on the edge of our eaves were three, count ‘em three flying squirrels. These things are smaller than the red squirrels and look a little like what you’d get if you crossed a bat with a gerbil, definitely registering on the “creepy” end of the rodent spectrum. Unfortunately, I believe that they may fall into the endangered species category and I am reluctant to shoot them. Even if I did want to shoot them, they are nocturnal creatures, and I don’t own a pair of night vision goggles. This is great, they’ll be up all night partying in our roof, listening to whatever annoying rock music flying squirrels listen to, chewing on our wiring and raising hell. To rub salt into the wound, as Shauna and I watched in disgust, two of them began to fornicate, right in front of us. And I thought the red squirrels were bad. I feel violated on so many levels.

This week we’re down in Buffalo because the time has come to start cleaning out my parents’ house. This time I brought Shauna and Jasper down with me for moral support, and I think that this was a wise decision. I know I’ve been whining a lot about this, but there’s a sold sign on the front lawn now, and when I walked into this vacant house Sunday evening, it was like a hard slap in the face. It suddenly hit me that a big part of my life was soon going to disappear. It's finally sinking in. Once again, I am uncovering strange little reminders of the distant past. In the back of a medicine cabinet I found my first bottle of cologne. It was probably also my last bottle of cologne, certainly my last bottle of Aramis. Monday, Presidents Day, or Family Day for Canadians, I met with an estate guy who came highly recommended in Buffalo. I’m hoping he can sell most of the furniture, fine art, and personal items not already spoken for. It’s not so hard to sell the dining room table, but who wants the ratty couch on the third floor, or the 30 year old console TV in the den?

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is proving to be every bit his father’s son. Having murdered over 5000 of his people in the bloody crackdown now centered in the city of Homs, he must be living in the Dark Ages if he thinks he can hide these atrocities from the world. How for instance does a leader claim there is no armed conflict when almost every Western news agency has footage of his snipers picking off unarmed Syrian citizens? On the other end of the spectrum of relevant news, I found the coverage of Whitney Houston’s untimely death to be a bit excessive. It reminds me of the over-the-top coverage of Lady Di’s death back in ’97. The only thing missing was another Elton John remake. Greece got it’s bailout ($172 Billion), now it’s Spain’s turn. I heard on the news that travel is at its highest level in 18 years. Finally, I was six years old when astronaut John Glenn made a historic five hour flight, circling the earth three times in 1962. Monday was the 50^th anniversary of that flight, and Glenn is now ninety years old. Where does the time go?



Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

A Valentine Song 2/14/12

Today is Valentine’s Day and, albeit an incurable romantic, I am annually irked by this sorry excuse to sell greeting cards and flowers. Every Valentine’s Day so far I have made an effort to write something for Shauna. Most times it’s a silly poem, but once, about ten years ago, I wrote and recorded a song, which I spent a bit of time composing and which am happy to have done. I’m pretty sure at this point that most of my songs will never be heard. Considering there are over 100 of them, at times that is somewhat discouraging. Therefore, and after hearing Paul McCartney’s new ( and I thought rather mediocre) Valentine song the other night on the Grammy’s, I figured I’d throw mine into the ring for the world (read the 12 of you who sometimes read this blog) to see.

A VALENTINE'S SONG
I’m told there are a thousand ways to say
“Would you be my Valentine today?”
And though for you I have no fancy pearls
I wrote this song to tell you you’re my world

I know I’m not the most romantic man
I try to keep you guessing that’s my plan
But you should know by now that you're my girl
And everything I’ve got to give is yours

CHO: And though for you I have no precious jewels
Shauna I couldn’t love you anymore than I do

And so I wrote this Valentine for you
I hope you know my sentiments are true
I should let you know more than I do
That hopelessly in love I am with you

CHO: Shauna be my Valentine,
And until the end of time
I’ll be true to you,
I’ll be true to you


Regards, 

Jamie

The Oppenheimer Report 2/13/12

We finally got a little taste of winter up here in the Great White North, and the snowmobiles were out in droves last weekend. One of my pet peeves with snowmobiles is that, as is the case with high performance speedboats, any chowderhead with enough money can go out and buy a powerful machine that will reach speeds of over 100 MPH, but nobody requires them to learn how to drive it. The other day, while I was at a gas station in busy Huntsville, some bozo had managed to get his expensive new snowmobile stuck in an embankment about ten feet from my parked car. He was gunning the motor for at least five minutes, trying in vain to free his machine by rocking in and out of the rut he was in. He was clearly going nowhere, over-revving his motor, billowing smoke into the air, and he was pointed directly at my car. Had he achieved the desired traction, he would have launched his machine directly into the side of my car. Eventually some good Samaritans (not I) helped him pick the thing up and move it, after which he zoomed off, oblivious, and on to his next mistake. I counted about thirty snowmobiles zooming around in Katrine, and I’ll wager that at least a quarter of them were under the influence, or going too fast to be in control of their machines. Indeed, last week there were several stories about snowmobile fatalities in the Muskoka region. From my motorcycle days, I remember that road obstructions come up fast at 85MPH. Look out for that r-WHAM!

I too was a weekend warrior, and on Saturday, when the mercury dipped to single digits, I took the ATV out onto the empty frozen lake for a little spin. We are on a three lake system and I drove as far as the end of the middle lake, a couple of miles, before chickening out and turning around. I was alone, it was late afternoon, I was in a dead zone for cell service, and I had none of the standard safety equipment one should bring when tooling around on a frozen lake (like rosary beads). I do have a winch on the ATV, but without some kind of auger to anchor into the ice, or a long length of good rope, or hand spikes, I’d be SOL if I ever did get into trouble. Staying warm is my big concern, and generally I am well equipped in that department. Snow pants help - we used to call them leggings when I was a kid - but I’m still having trouble keeping my hands warm. Lots of snowmobiles come with heated grips, but my ATV does not have this feature. I bought something called “Hippo Hands” which is essentially a giant insulated covering that goes over the hand grips, and that helps, but makes it difficult to operate the throttle or find the starter button. When it’s ten below out you don’t want to be taking your gloves off to feel around for the controls. My next purchase will be electrically heated gloves. Anyhow, winter is a lot more fun with snow-friendly toys. Generally I drive like an old lady, but every so often I try and see what that little machine of mine can do. The answer is, a lot more than I have the “stones“ to do with it. Several times I’ve climbed steep embankments or taken it into rather deep snow, and so far I have not rolled it or been stuck. BTW, I reserve my right to be an idiot far away from the general public, not on the streets of Huntsville. I rely on the sage advice of some of my experienced snow voyagers: get on the throttle if you start to get stuck. Around sunset, Shauna and I took a walk together out onto the lake, and it was quite lovely to watch that fire red sky against a vast expanse of white. One of our neighbors had cleared a skating rink and there was a game going on. One of these days I’ll buy some cross country skis; I think that would be a good way to travel on the frozen lake, and to get some exercise to boot.

Final notes, I won’t complain about the Grammy’s this year because in my opinion it was a rather entertaining show. The Gloved One, Amy Winehouse, Etta James, and now Whitney Houston; they’re dropping like flies. Of course, everyone was talking about the untimely death of Whitney Houston in her hotel room just a day before the big ceremony. It will be weeks before we’re told the cause of death, but I’m guessing it wasn’t bad tuna. This is all Bobby Brown’s fault. My girl Adele cleaned up with 6 Grammy Awards, and Bon Iver, another group I like, also won an award. I understand that the Grammys rewards all forms of music, but this year it just seemed to me infinitely more enjoyable to watch than last year’s horrible show. I thought Jennifer Hudson did a fantastic tribute to Whitney. Hard to believe that girl placed 7^th in American Idol back in 2003. Syria’s Assad and his allies Russia and China thumbed their noses at the U.N., which is to say, angry but carefully worded U.N. resolutions will be forthcoming. This is not good press for Russia and China, but serves to remind me that much of the world is not free of oppression. With rumors Israel may soon strike to disable Iran’s nuclear capability, and mindful of the problems in Egypt, I fear the Middle East is setting up to be a major hurricane. Can’t they all just agree to settle all this with a rousing game of Rollerball? Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report 2/6/12

Just in time for the big economic recovery in the States that will skyrocket President Obama to his second term in office, last week, social networking giant Facebook announced that it will go public in 2012. Reportedly, the initial public offering is $5 Billion, and this is conflobulating to me. We’re back to that amorphous internet value thing, and I thought that bubble burst a while ago. Everybody’s looking for that pot of gold. By some estimates, Facebook is currently valued at $100 Billion, and founder Mark Zuckerberg is now worth about $23 Billion. Not bad compensation for an idea he ripped off from a couple of rich Yale preppies. Some argue that Facebook is a passing fad, doomed to go the way of MySpace when the next big thing hits, but I’m not so sure. Until someone else creates a better, free social network wherein anybody with internet access can “re-connect” with long lost acquaintances, without actually having to interact with them, I think Facebook is the future. Apparently, so do investors. Of all the things I enjoy about FB, the immediacy is intoxicating. It’s even more fun than Google Earth. With one click, I can watch a video of my niece and nephew’s little girl taking her first steps, or click on photos of a high school classmate’s walk on the Great Wall of China. Facebook may have jump started the Arab Spring, and it ties the world together in a format that is so easy to use even boneheads like me can figure out. If I want to read an article that one of my intelligent friends deems worthy of my attention, it’s just a click away. If I want to spam my friends with some of my musical endeavors, no problemo. Between YouTube and Facebook, it’s a brave new world out there in cyberspace, and one where information and disinformation have never been easier to access. Hardly anyone is reading this blog, because 1. I’m not that interesting, 2. who wants to read a whole page of my insipid thoughts anyhow, and 3. The whole world is communicating in abbreviations and acronyms. It’s hard to make BFF when I’m SOL(LOL!). I consult Facebook at least once per day, so yes, I am among the legions of the attention-challenged. The downside is that, much the same as when reality television seeped into our culture like a broken sewer main, I am bombarded by the tsunami of drek. I don’t like being reminded that a video clip of some squirrel waterskiing gets 3 million hits, but the legendary Jeff Beck, playing a classic rock n roll song with the great and talented Johnny Lang receives a paltry 6000 views. That squirrel has not paid his dues, and it ticks me off. Now I hear he’s getting his own reality show next season. But if you can’t beat ’em tweet ’em.

Weird story out of Leroy, N.Y. which, if my ever-eroding memory serves me correctly, is only about an hour east of Buffalo. Fifteen high school girls have been afflicted with some kind of neurological disorder involving, among other things, severe ticks and twitching. Now, an adult woman in the community has also come down with the mysterious illness, prompting the ever-vigilant celebrity whistle-blower Erin Brockovitch to jump into the investigation. Apparently there is some concern that a chemical spill from a train derailment 40 years ago has suddenly caused this. Really? Maybe Erin is barking up the wrong tree with both oars out of the water. Maybe she should change directions and start writing socially responsible children’s mysteries, sort of a didactic Nancy Drew. Erin Brokovitch and the Case of the Twitching Cheerleaders. Another theory is that these mysterious symptoms are evidence of what doctors call a conversion disorder, a strange reaction of the human body to one or more psychological traumas. Whatever the cause, it began about three months ago and it has everyone baffled.

As Superbowls go, I thought last night’s (#XLVI for all you Romans out there) was pretty entertaining. The game was close (21-17 Giants) right up until the end, and it came down to a failed hail Mary pass by Patriot’s QB Tom Brady. This reminded me of another very close Superbowl, back in 1990. Bill Parcell’s Giants beat the Buffalo Bills 20-19 in Superbowl 25 (I mean XXV), and Bill Belichick was the Giants’ defensive coordinator (ironical huh?). That one came down to a missed 47 yard field goal attempt by the now notorious Bills kicker Scott Norwood. I wonder how many faxes I received at the office the next day depicting a cartoon of Norwood, his back to the viewer, peeing wide right of a urinal. While in general I am not particularly interested in American football, and feel that American football players are among the luckiest athletes in the world, almost unanimously undeserving of their elevated status in American culture, I do watch the Superbowl every year. Now that I am an landed ignorant, I can’t even see the great Superbowl commercials they broadcast stateside. The halftime show back in 1990 was New Kids on the Block, and this year it was Madonna. I don’t know what kind of a bug that spiteful old queen Elton John has up his enormous ass; why does he hate Madonna so much? I’m not a fan, but I do respect her entertainment value. BTW, she did not have a wardrobe malfunction: Letterman predicted her teeth would fall out. LOL
       Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 1/30/12

Squirrel update. It amuses me that almost any source I consulted on the internet, or the people I asked, suggested that “six feet under” is the best place to relocate a squirrel. I was looking for information as to how far away I should expect to relocate the critters when I live trap them. For your edification, five to ten miles is apparently the minimum. Seems to me like a long way for a squirrel to travel; how do they find their way back, GPS? There were some very creative responses to my query. One fellow suggested that relocation could be anywhere from five to twelve feet, depending on the force of the shotgun blast. Most responses suggested gratuitous violence, which leads me to believe squirrels are not the most beloved creatures on the food chain. Personally, I would not use a shotgun to kill a squirrel. The red squirrels are the culprits, but the bigger, less troublesome black ones keep getting caught in the trap. Our weather has been mercurial and at times the traps we set froze and were not closing on the lighter red squirrels. I finally relented and popped one of the little bastards the other day. He was not getting the humaneness of my non-violent approach and force was required. Like the Mob, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, then fuggetabottit. So I whacked my first squirrel, as a message to his annoying relatives. I thought about mounting his head on a stick atop our birdhouse, or smearing his blood on my face as some sort of tribal Hoo-Yah. Having drawn first rodent blood, I expect that this will get easier and easier with time. The good news: with three red squirrels either relocated to another county or dead, there seems to be much less activity in our roof. When I’m sure the whole fam damily is gone, I’ll seal up the hole.

Warning! Political rant paragraph. I’m having a lot of trouble envisioning either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich as the front runners for the Republican party. So Gingrich beat Romney in S. Carolina, he doesn’t seem elect able to me. I don’t like Romney much either and I suspect that many of the younger voters won’t buy his brand of tuna. On top of all this, he’s rich, and apparently that is grounds for beheading in America right now. When the dust settles, like it or not Mitt is probably the guy, so give Newt and the Teabaggers the Bronx cheer, and get your party aligned ASAP. If you don’t, you commit hari kari before you even enter the race. What concerns me most is that, as the economy starts to plateau or turn upwards, which it may now begin to do, Obama’s a shoe in no matter who the elephants put up. If you listened to Obama’s State of Union speech last Tuesday, and if you read between the lines, it was all about increased government spending. I think Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the guy who made the GOP response speech to Obama’s State of the Union address, made the best case for choosing a fiscally conservative Republican candidate. He was miles above Newt or Mitt in communication skills, and he has a normal name. As for Obama’s campaign directive, “eat the rich” might fly with some people, but I’ll wager there are even members of the shrinking middle class that don’t buy that jive. It’s divisive and playing Robin Hood won’t work. It sounds good, and I completely understand the indignation of everyone who‘s been screwed by Wall Street. Unbridled greed did get us into this mess, but for the record, that was bi-partisan greed. We all drank the Koolaid, let’s not point fingers. As for increasing the tax burden on the rich, absolutely, close the loopholes, try and make the tax code simpler and fairer. I think the tax code as it stands now is unfair. Change it, and keep a lid on irresponsible banking and investment practices. While you’re at it, change the campaign funding rules to better favor eligible candidates who don’t have boatloads of money. But don’t lead the American people to believe that simply changing tax rates and hamstringing the evil corporations, who g-d forbid are in the business of making money, will be the magic bullet. Ask Main Street if the Obama administration has been good for business. $700 Billion of taxpayer money spent, and unemployment is still through the roof.

Can cold make you lose weight? I watched a news story about a study which suggests that lowering body temperature by a few degrees can cause brown fat cells to burn at a surprising rate. But hold your horses Hoss, before you move to Fargo, N.D. as your weight loss strategy, you might want to wait for a little more research. There are plenty of fat people in Buffalo and it gets really cold there in the winter. Finally, I need look no further than the Toronto Star for the news that matters to me. On page four of last week’s Saturday Star was a little article which read “Windsor outraged by dwarf tossing event.” Some bar sponsored a dwarf tossing competition last Saturday and some local residents feel this is an indignity to little people. I won‘t argue with this, but do we really need legislation to protect the dwarfs? I think this falls into the consenting adults category, and where the deed becomes an assault, deal with it accordingly; there are laws governing assault. Apparently, a Member of Parliament representing Windsor felt it did require legislation, and in 2003 introduced the failed Dwarf Tossing Ban Act. You tax dollars at work. Up here in Katrine, I’m thinking of introducing a new sport: squirrel snow blowing. The folks at PETA might be all over me on this one. Aside from the obvious catharsis of watching these destructive little pests spread out on my snowy front lawn like bad art, it IS a bit extreme. I suppose this would prompt an MP up here to sponsor the Squirrel Snowblowing Ban Act. Hey, I’m a peaceful man, but I’m ready to “get medieval” on some pesky rodents if they keep pushing my buttons. Sooner or later I’m gonna (snow)blow. Speaking of snow, we got about a foot yesterday here in the Great White North. Finally.

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED