November 19, 2006

Cataract Surgery - What to Expect, Details, Costs

I have recently had cataract surgery. I am 52 years old and have lived with growing cataracts for at least eighteen years. Before the surgery I tried to research several types of details on the Internet -- details I was unable to find. I wanted to know simple things like: How many doctor's appointments will be required? What will be the purpose of each appointment? What procedures will be performed at each appointment? How much will everything cost? In this post I will answer those questions and more based on my experiences. I will simply show the charges listed on my insurance forms, rather than the amounts I paid. I'm sure your charges will differ based on your region, your doctor, and your insurance (or lack of insurance). My surgery was in Anderson, South Carolina, USA. I will list all the costs at the end of this long post.

First Appointment - examination
This was an appointment I made with an ophthalmologist recommended by my family doctor. The appointment was for 3:00 o'clock. I was told to come early to fill out forms. I got there at 2:35 and spent ten or fifteen minutes filling out two forms. I was called at 3:20. A technician asked me a lot of questions about my eyes, my health, my medical history, and my family's medical history. She borrowed my glasses and used a machine to identify their prescription. I looked into a machine that created a printout about my eyes. I was taken to another room where I was given vision tests using projected letter charts and various lenses. Drops were put in my eyes to numb them. I was given a glaucoma test in each eye using a machine that touched my eyeballs. Drops were put into my eyes to dilate my pupils. I waited a long time in a waiting area.

I saw the doctor at 5:20. He examined my eyes. He asked me a lot of questions trying to determine the effect my cataracts were having on my lifestyle. (If you've been living with cataracts you need to make a list of ways they impact you. Here are some examples from my list. I had trouble driving at night due to the glare from oncoming headlights. I had trouble negotiating rocks and roots in the trail while hiking. I had to use a small flashlight to read menus in restaurants at night.) The doctor told me about the surgery and its risks. He told me to think about it before deciding. He said that day's examination results could be used if I had surgery within ninety days. The total charge for the appointment was $155.

I called the ophthalmologist's office and said I had decided to have the surgery. We selected a day for the surgery and I was given a pre-surgery appointment during the week preceding the surgery. They also made an appointment for me to have an EKG (electrocardiogram) made at the surgery center on the same day as the pre-surgery appointment.

Second Appointment (part 1) - pre-surgery consultation and measurement
My appointment was for 8:30 AM. I arrived at 8:20 and was called at 8:36. I looked into a machine that used a beam of red light to take internal measurements of my right eye. The beam could not penetrate the cataract in my left eye well enough to take measurements. We went into another room. First the lady showed me a small zippered bag containing two eye patches, glasses for sleeping, a clear plastic eye shield, tape, wraparound sunglasses, a bottle of Acular LS eye drops, a bottle of Pred ForteZymar eye drops, and instructions. She gave me lots of instructions verbally and asked if I had questions. Next she took my blood pressure. Then drops were put into my eyes to numb them. The lady touched my eyeballs with a light device that took measurements. She got the right eye's measurements okay, but repeated the process on the left eye four or five times (and gave me more numbing drops halfway through). She was unable to get precise measurements on my left eye due to the density of the cataract. I signed a form authorizing the surgery, authorizing the presence of a medical representative, authorizing trainee observers, and authorizing the operation be televised to the waiting room.

Then I saw the doctor. He gave me some glare tests for each eye by having me read a chart as he manipulated lights in the room. We discussed what type of new lens I wanted and whether I wanted to be near-sighted or far-sighted. We talked about the surgery and he answered my questions. When I left I was told that the day's charge would be part of the surgery fee. I was also given an appointment to see the doctor at 11:00 AM on the day after the surgery.

Second Appointment (part 2) - EKG
At the surgery center pre-op building I signed a federal privacy form, waited a few minutes, and was taken into an office where a lady keyed my data into her computer. She told me the surgery center's facility fee ($2,700) and how much I would have to pay on the day of the surgery ($275). I signed forms authorizing the surgery and authorizing them to bill my insurance company. Then after waiting awhile I went into another room. I signed two forms -- one authorizing an EKG be made and one authorizing the company to charge my insurance company. I took off my shirts, shoes, and socks. The technician stuck little pieces of conductive tape on my chest, sides, and ankles and then attached wires to each piece of tape. She started the EKG machine which printed a chart. Then I waited awhile and went to another room to talk with the pre-op nurse. She gave me instructions about what to eat, wear, do, not do, etc. I signed a form verifying that she had gone over the instructions with me, and I left.

I filled the Zymar prescription at CVS. It was $66.59. My instructions required me to start using two types of drops in my left eye four times a day on each of the three days before the surgery. I was told to call the surgery center after 10:00 AM on the day before my surgery to get the time I should be there for surgery the next day. For the day of the surgery I was told to eat a light breakfast and not to use the eye drops that day until after the surgery. I was told to wear a short-sleeved button-up or zippered shirt and no undershirt. I was told to bring the kit the doctor's assistant had given to me and to have a ride home. I was instructed not to bring any valuables (except $275), wear any jewelry, or wear a watch.

Third Appointment - cataract surgery
A friend drove me to the surgery center. We arrived at 7:30 AM as instructed. I paid a $275 deposit. My friend was told which monitor in the waiting room would show my operation. I was called at 7:35. I was asked to remove my shoes and place them in a bag which was provided. I was given little socks with rubberized soles to put on over my socks. I was given a flimsy hair bag to put on my head. I laid down on an operating bed and was attended by three nurses. A pulse and oxygen monitor was clipped onto my left index finger. They took my temperature and blood pressure (which was 185/86, much higher than my usual 116/67). Drops were put in my eye. An intravenous needle was put in my right arm and Versed was administered. The needle was painful and felt like it was being pulled sideways. I complained about the pain and the nurse repositioned it so that it no longer hurt. A nurse put a Xanax pill into my mouth. It began dissolving on my tongue and tasted terrible before the nurse gave me water to drink. Xanax reduces anxiety. Several different drops were put into my eye. The only drops the nurse named for me were Lidocaine, a topical anesthetic. One nurse kept asking me questions like when and what had I eaten last, when did I last empty my bladder, was I in any pain, and more. I kept talking to the nurses and asking questions until they gave me another intravenous dose of Versed. Then I was wheeled into the operating room.

It's hard to remember much of the procedure due to the effects of the Versed. I remember being uncomfortable and making them adjust my pillows and arm supports. The operation lasted twenty minutes, from 8:20 to 8:40. I was lying on my back on the operating bed throughout the operation. I know I talked to the doctor and asked questions during the operation, but I don't remember the questions or the answers. The doctor cut a slit in the side of my eyeball and inserted a device that used sound waves to shatter the lens. He used a small vacuum to suck out the lens pieces. He inserted a folded lens, positioned it, and unfolded it into the capsular bag (i.e. the membrane sack that holds the lens). The sound device and the base unit it was plugged into made eerie noises while I was seeing weird images due to the tool in my eyeball. It reminded me of the old TV series "The Outer Limits" and I said so. A few times during the operation the doctor told me to look at a light or look to the right. I only felt pain once, and I mentioned it. Rather than adding more anesthetic the doctor said we were finished. The nurses removed the various things attached to me. I was surprised when they removed heart monitor leads stuck to my chest, which I had not known were attached. I was helped into the waiting room, given a small cup of Coke to drink, and given verbal and written instructions. The doctor came out to see me and asked me if I had any questions. I asked him the make of the lens. He said Alcon and said I'd get a card with the lens information on it. The doctor told me there was an air bubble in my left eye but not to worry about it. He said it would go away on its own. He told me not to shower that day or the next. He said he would see me at his office the next morning at 11:00 AM. The nurse who gave me the drink and instructions gave me a card containing the specifics about my new lens. We left about 9:00, just one and a half hours after we arrived.

I used my three bottles of eye drops, caught up on my email, ate lunch, researched my lens model, and did other non-demanding stuff around the house. About 2:30 PM I became uncontrollably sleepy, as if one of the drugs was wearing off. I taped my plastic eye shield over my left eye, lay down on the bed, and went to sleep. At 4:30 I was awakened by my telephone. I answered thinking it was my friend who said he might call later to check on me. It was my surgeon, not one of his assistants, but the surgeon himself. He just wanted to check on me, make sure I was doing okay, and confirm our appointment for 11:00 the next morning. Wow. I don't think I've ever had a doctor call me at home to check on me.

Fourth Appointment - examination the day after surgery
My appointment was for 11:00, the doctor saw me at 11:08, and I left at 11:15. The doctor examined my eye, had me read eye charts using various lenses, put drops in my eye, and examined my eye again. He said there is some plaque from scarring on the back of the lens bag that he will remove with a laser later if it proves to be a problem. The appointment's charge would be part of the surgery fee.

Fifth Appointment - one week after surgery
I was called back quickly and looked into a machine that made a printout about my eye. The technician repeated the procedure several times before she got a printout she found acceptable. She made me read eye charts inside the machine. Using the machine's corrective lens my left eye's vision was 20/25. She asked me about any problems I've had. I listed the following four. First, I see a black arc extending from top to bottom on the left edge of my field of vision. Second, when there's a light source on my left I see flickering reflections along the left edge of the lens. Third, there's still a slightly fuzzy area in my field of view, as if I still have a cataract. Fourth, I felt shooting pain in my left eye about ten times that day, the first day I felt any pain since the day after the surgery.

The doctor saw me from about 4:10 to 4:23. He put a numbing drop in my eye and used a machine to check the eye's pressure. I discussed the four problems with him. He had never had a patient report seeing the black arc. He advised me to ignore it so that my brain can filter it out. (I have found references on the Internet to the black arc I'm seeing. It's called "negative dysphotopsia".) He said the edge glare should decrease as the lens bag seals and opacifies around the edge of the lens. He said the fuzzy patch is due to scar tissue on the back of my lens bag. He said with my vision correctible to 20/25 we shouldn't do anything about the scar tissue. The day's pain was because I stopped using the Acular LS drops the previous day, and those drops are for pain. He gave me another bottle of Acular LS and told me to use it four times a day until the bottle ran out. I was given another appointment time in about three weeks. At that appointment if all is well, I'll get a new glasses prescription. Today's charge was again part of the overall surgery fee.

Sixth Appointment - one month after surgery
I was called at 2:30 for my 2:00 appointment. A technician had me look into a machine that made a printout about my eye. Another technician applied numbing eye drops and checked the pressure in each eye. She also swapped lenses and had me read eye charts until she determined my glasses prescription. Then the doctor tried to use a Zeiss machine to make a detailed image of my retina. He couldn't do it because my pupil was too small. So he put drops in my left eye to dilate it. Fifteen minutes later a technician took the picture of my retina. The doctor examined the picture on a computer screen and made a printout. He then examined my eye again (since it was dilated). He told me my retina was too thick. He wanted to make sure all inflammation from the surgery was gone before giving me a new glasses prescription, so he prescribed two eye drops: Prednisolone AC and Acular LS. He told me to use one drop from each bottle four times a day for one month, waiting five to ten minutes between each drop. I left at 4:20. The charge for this visit was $100. At CVS the Prednisolone AC cost me $16.59 and the Acular LS cost me $81.59.

Seventh Appointment - two months after surgery
I arrived at 10:25 for a 10:30 appointment. They called me at 11:00. I looked into the machine that made a printout about my left eye. I worked with a technician to determine my glasses prescription, for bifocals. My vision was corrected to 20/25 and I got two letters on the 20/20 line. Then she put numbing drops in my eyes and tested their pressure -- 15 in each eye. Then she put dilation drops in my left eye and I waited for the doctor. The doctor saw me from 11:55 to 12:20. He examined my left eye and then used the Zeiss Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) machine to analyze my left eye, first with a normal analysis and then with a detailed analysis. He let me look at the images and explained them to me. The medical term for my condition was "sub-clinical cystoid macular edema" which simply means "a swollen retina". The extra month of eye drops worked. The fluid was no longer in my retina. My retina was no longer swollen. The doctor told me to continue the Acular LS eye drops four times a day until the bottle is empty. He told me to continue the Prednisolone eye drops four times a day for two more days and then taper off for three weeks by decreasing the number of drops by one at the start of each week. I got my glasses prescription and left. I did not buy my glasses at the ophthalmologist's office.

I ordered my new glasses from America's Best. The glasses were ready eleven days later. I picked them up, drove home, and discovered I couldn't read my computer screen with the bifocal lenses, even though we had used a tape measure to get the distance right in determining the prescription.

Eighth Appointment (due to incorrect glasses)
They called me at 3:55 for my 3:45 appointment. The doctor checked my new glasses in a machine and said the glasses were correct for my prescription. He then worked with me to determine a new prescription, and we used my tape measure to make the focal distance 27 inches for the bifocal lenses. The new prescription was different from the prescription from 18 days earlier -- for both distance and for the bifocals for each eye. We corrected my vision to 20/30. The doctor tested the pressure in my left eye and then administered dilating drops. When the eye was dilated he examined the eye and took pictures of the retina to make sure the swelling had not returned. It had not. The assistant who wrote the new prescription card for me wrote "remake" on the card. The next day I took the glasses and the new prescription to America's Best. They agreed to replace the lenses at no additional charge.

A week later I picked up the glasses. They're still not right but I'm trying to adapt to them. The sharpest focus through my bifocal lens is 17 inches for my right eye and 22 inches for my left eye. There is no distance that's sharp for both eyes. My computer screen is 27 to 33 inches from my face when I sit comfortably working at the computer. Neither eye focuses properly at that range. My distance vision is okay through the top lenses, but only for a tiny part near the center of each lens. I have to turn my head to directly face whatever I want to focus on. (My previous glasses were standard plastic lenses and I could see clearly by shifting my eyes toward whatever I wanted to see without turning my head. I can't do that with these polycarbonate lenses.) I first noticed the limited focus area driving home from picking up the glasses. I discovered I had to turn my head toward road signs as they passed to read them. If I kept facing straight ahead and simply shifted my eyes to read the signs the signs were out of focus.

The time from my initial ophthalmologist appointment to when I picked up my glasses was 122 days, or four months (July 17, 2006 to November 16, 2006).

Here's a recap of the costs related to my cataract surgery. Each cost is rounded to the nearest dollar. I will update the list if I receive more bills.



$155 Ophthalmologist
$67 Zymar drops
$181 EKG
$300 Outpatient Anesthesia
$200 Outpatient Surgery
$2,500 Outpatient Surgery
$144 Ophthalmologist Radiology
$1,650 Outpatient Surgery (surgeon's fee)
$100 Ophthalmologist
$17 Prednisolone AC drops
$82 Acular LS drops
$177 Glasses
$100 Ophthalmologist
------
$5,673 Total



Other Blog Accounts of Cataract Surgery
Sneakeasy's Joint: Eye Survived Cataract Surgery Fine
Distractions, reflections: 20/20 vision in my left eye
Michael Swanson's Blog: Cataract Surgery
The Dedalus Log: Second Sight

September 13, 2006

TV Remote Control Problem Solved

Fluorescent lamps can interfere with TV remote controls.

My parents recently had an intermittent problem with their television's remote control. For several months the remote only worked sometimes. The TV is a Sony Trinitron. The remote control is a Magnavox universal remote. I changed the remote's batteries, cleaned the infrared sensor on the front of the TV, and tested the remote on a VCR and on another TV. The remote worked fine with other devices, but the Sony TV only responded to it infrequently. I deduced that the problem was with the TV -- a bad infrared sensor, a loose connection, or a failed internal circuit.

I researched remote control problems using Google. I read several technical sites that talked about using voltmeters, oscilloscopes, or other instruments to troubleshoot ir sensor problems. After going through several pages of search results I came to a bulletin board post from 1996 that said to turn off any fluorescent lights in the room because sometimes they interfere with remotes.

I turned off my mother's fluorescent reading lamp and the remote worked perfectly. The lamp is a Balanced Spectrum Floor Lamp that my father bought a few months ago. The lamp has two settings; high and low. The high setting interferes with the remote even when the lamp is turned away from the TV. Apparently the reflected light waves are enough to cause a problem. The low setting does not interfere with the remote. Interestingly, the lamp does not affect the same remote's control of the RCA Home Theatre VCR, which is beneath the TV on the same stand.

Since I had to read so many Internet pages about remote control problems before I found the 1996 tip about fluorescent lamps, I thought posting the information here might be helpful.

June 17, 2006

BitDefender Antivirus: Review of Problems

[Updates have been inserted in brackets where appropriate.]

I have been evaluating BitDefender 9 Standard on my home computer for about two weeks. I like BitDefender's effectiveness, price, and features, but it has several problems. In this post I will describe the problems I have encountered so far.

1. Disruptive Email-Scanning Notification Windows
Whenever BitDefender is scanning a mail message, it adds a little window on the lower right of the screen. When multiple messages are being scanned, multiple windows are created. Sometimes the entire right side of my screen is covered with these windows. As each scan completes, the window associated with that scan disappears. Here's a photograph I took of my screen while BitDefender was scanning incoming mail.

Picture of screen while BitDefender scans incoming mail. Note the little windows along the right side.
In the picture above I was editing an HTML file in Win32pad when Eudora downloaded my mail in the background and BitDefender scanned the incoming mail. I use POPFile to filter spam. BitDefender adds separate windows for Eudora and POPFile for each incoming message.

Not only are these windows an intrusive distraction, but they take the Windows focus from the application. That means if I am typing in an application when mail arrives, my keystrokes stop working because BitDefender windows have taken the focus. The newest mail-scanning window becomes the active window. If I quickly click in the application to make the application the active window, the next BitDefender window just takes the focus again. The net effect is that I can't continue working while BitDefender is scanning incoming mail. I have to stop whatever I'm doing and wait for the mail scans to finish.

This mail-scanning behavior is outrageously bad. I don't understand why the ninth version of an antivirus program would be designed to behave this way. An antivirus program should work inconspicuously in the background. It should not distract the user with pop-up informational windows. It should not create multiple pop-up windows. It should not take the focus away from the current application. BitDefender describes the program as, "an 'install and forget' product" (here, as of 6/17/06). There's no way to forget an antivirus program that forces you to stop what you're doing every time mail arrives.

The mail-scanning windows have a negative impact on the user's work and provide little or no benefit. The windows should be removed from the program or at the least made optional so the user can turn them off. If BitDefender is determined to show the user when mail is being scanned, it should do so subtly without taking the focus away from the current application. For example, the color of the BitDefender icon in the system tray could be changed while mail scanning is in progress.

[UPDATE 8/10/06: The e-mail scanning notifications are optional (as they should be). The notification windows can be turned off as follows. In BitDefender select the "General" tab on the left. Select "Settings" in the top menu bar. Uncheck the box that says "Show on-screen notes". Click the "Apply" button at the bottom. Close the BitDefender window by clicking the "X" in the upper right corner. This setting option is poorly named. "On-screen notes" implies some sort of help feature to me. The option should be named more descriptively, like "Show e-mail scanning notices" for example.]

2. Incoming Mail Timeouts
Each time I receive an email with an attachment that's more than a few hundred kilobytes, BitDefender causes the mail download to fail with a timeout error. When a download times out I have to notice that the download has failed, disable BitDefender's virus shield, download the mail manually, and turn BitDefender's virus shield back on. Until two weeks ago I used Norton AntiVirus and I never had this problem. Norton AntiVirus sometimes added "X-Symantec-TimeoutProtection" lines to a mail's header. POPFile sometimes adds "X-POPFile-TimeoutPrevention" to a mail's header. Apparently timeouts are a common problem that other mail-handling programs like Norton AntiVirus and POPFile handle, but BitDefender does not.

[UPDATE 6/23/06: Some large incoming mails time out and some don't. Some headers of large mails contain BitDefender timeout lines and some don't. As a test I mailed myself a large file (over 4 MB). The outgoing message timed out. I disabled BitDefender, sent the mail again, and the message was sent properly. I enabled BitDefender and downloaded the large email. The incoming mail did not time out and 13 lines beginning with "X-BitDefender-TimeOut" had been inserted in the mail's header. I was wrong when I said BitDefender does not handle mail timeouts. It would be more accurate to say that BitDefender's timeout protection is unreliable. I never had mail timeouts when I used Norton AntiVirus and I have experienced several mail timeouts while using BitDefender.]

3. Eudora Mailbox Files Quarantined
During my first full-system scan BitDefender detected a suspected bad java script in at least one message in each of three Eudora mailbox files. Rather than cleaning, quarantining, or deleting the specific messages, BitDefender moved the entire mailbox files to quarantine. I turned off BitDefender and reloaded the three mailbox files from a backup. (I later discovered that quarantined files can be restored from BitDefender's quarantine screen.) I wanted to find and delete each problem message manually so that the mailbox files would not be quarantined again during the next scan. BitDefender's report only identified each message by its position in the mailbox file -- like "message 367". I would have to manually count the messages to find and delete the messages containing the bad java scripts. I found and deleted one message manually.

Rather than attempt to find and delete the other two messages manually, I turned BitDefender's virus shield back on, listed Eudora mailbox files in Windows Explorer, and right clicked on one of the mailbox files I had restored. I selected "BitDefender Antivirus v9" from the right-click menu and BitDefender scanned the file. This time BitDefender found and cleaned the bad message without moving the file to quarantine. The mailbox contained the same number of messages before and after the cleaning. I then requested a scan of the other restored mailbox file and BitDefender reported that it successfully cleaned that file too. I do not know why BitDefender handled the same files differently on a manual scan and a full-system scan.

[UPDATE 6/18/06: I scanned C: and BitDefender reported finding and deleting the two viruses in mailbox files that it had previously found and claimed to have deleted. It did not move the mailbox files to quarantine. I immediately scanned the same two files again and BitDefender again reported finding and deleting the same two viruses. I scanned the two files a third time and again BitDefender said it found and deleted the same two viruses. BitDefender claims to delete the viruses on each scan, but then finds the same viruses in the same mail messages on subsequent scans. These scans reveal a disturbing bug in BitDefender. Sometimes BitDefender falsely reports the deletion of a virus. I suggest repeating the scan of any file from which BitDefender reports deleting a virus. I used a text editor on the two mailbox files to find and delete the two java scripts BitDefender was reporting.]

I am apprehensive of how BitDefender will handle good incoming messages if there's something bad in a message arriving at the same time. I ran a test by turning off BitDefender and mailing myself several messages, one of which contained the EICAR test virus. I then turned BitDefender back on, waited a few minutes, and downloaded my mail. My test was foiled because my ISP, BellSouth, has an arrangement whereby Symantec checks all mail for viruses. The message in which I included the EICAR test virus had a line inserted saying Symantec had removed the virus.

4. Incoming Mail Scan Wakes Up Monitor
I have my 21-inch monitor set to power-off after fifteen minutes of inactivity. When BitDefender scans incoming mail it activates my monitor as if I had moved the mouse or pressed a key.

5. Less-Important Problems
The quarantine screen does not show a quarantined file's original location, nor does it show the date and time a file was quarantined. If I want to restore a file that was quarantined from multiple locations, there's no way to know which instance of the file to restore.

BitDefender creates folders and files in my C:\Windows\Temp directory. These files are not automatically removed. An example folder name is "tmp000031c1". Each folder contains one file of zero bytes. An example file name is "tmp00000000". The folders and files accumulate until they are deleted manually or through a programmed clean-up process.

BitDefender may prevent the game Unreal from running. I realized I had not tried to play a game since installing BitDefender, so I tried Unreal and the game aborted with an error that said something like "Flip Failed Surface Busy". I rebooted and disabled BitDefender. Then Unreal ran fine.

[UPDATE 10/12/06: I have played Unreal several times now while BitDefender was running, without crashing.]

My computer is more unstable and requires rebooting more frequently since I installed BitDefender. The most recent time I was forced to reboot, my computer was frozen with two mail-scanning windows on the lower right of the screen.

-----

My system info:
Windows 98 SE
POPFile 0.22.2
Eudora 4.3.2
ZoneAlarm 5.5.094.000
BitDefender 9 Standard (build 9.5)

May 27, 2006

Famous Crimefighters by Robert Larranaga

I read a short easy book last night -- Famous Crimefighters by Robert Larranaga (Lerner Publications, 1970). It was 78 pages and profusely illustrated with old photographs. It covered the men responsible for each evolutionary step in crime fighting from the early 1800s to 1970. It began with Francis Eugene Vidocq in France. He was a famous criminal who switched sides and created the first detective agency to help catch criminals. His organization was called the Sûreté (Surete). Next was Sir Robert Peel in England. In the early 1800s England had no police force because the people feared police would abuse their power. The closest thing to policemen were the Bow Street Runners (called "Charleys") who were court assistants. in 1829 Bobby Peel, the Home Secretary, created the first London Metropolitan police department. The men were called "Peelers" after Bobby Peel but later they became known as "Bobbies" also after Bobby Peel. The police force was located at 4 Whitehall Place which is where Kings and Queens of Scotland stayed when they visited London. The police force became known as Scotland Yard.

Next was Alphonse Bertillon, a Frenchmen who recognized the limitations of the "rogues gallery" for identifying criminals. A criminal would simply change his appearance by growing a beard or mustache and no longer be identifiable from his picture. Bertillon developed a system of identifying people by their measurements -- height, arm length, leg length, and skull measurements. Within two years of developing his system he had caught 240 criminals by their measurements. The system was called "bertillonage" and was installed in every French prison. All prisoners were measured. Then crime fighters began experimenting with fingerprints. The man credited with establishing a system for matching fingerprints was Sir Edward Henry, the Commissioner of Scotland Yard, but several men in several countries contributed to the new science.

Next was Allan Pinkerton who started the first detective agency in the US. He and his agency were famous for providing security for President Lincoln, for acting as spies in the south during the Civil War, and for catching or killing many famous robbers. Allan Pinkerton died when he got gangrene after biting his tongue. When Pinkerton died in 1884 bertillonage was still being used in US prisons rather than fingerprints. Then there was an incident at Leavenworth Prison in Kansas, when two men were discovered to have the same name and the same measurements. The incident got lots of publicity and bertillonage lost it credibility as a foolproof method of identification. Then a New York detective named Joseph A. Faurot studied fingerprinting at Scotland Yard and established its use in the US in 1906.

Then came a chapter about J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Famous criminals mentioned were Bruno Hauptman who kidnapped and murdered the Lindbergh child, Pretty Boy Floyd, "Machine Gun" Kelly, "Mad-Dog" Karpis, John Dillinger, and "Baby Face" Nelson. Although the 18th amendment was passed to eliminate societal evils related to alcohol, it had the opposite effect and created the biggest crime wave the country had ever known. The book says during prohibition there were probably more gangsters in the US than there were soldiers in World War I. In New York alone there were over 22,000 speakeasies. The book covered Al Capone, Dutch Schultz, Bugs Moran, and Treasury Agent Eliot Ness.

Next was Dr. Bernard Spilsbury, who pioneered forensic medicine in crime fighting. He worked with Scotland Yard. Dr. Charles Norris followed with the establishment of a forensic medicine laboratory in New York, which he set up with his own money. Next was John F. Tyrrell, the world's greatest handwriting expert. His methods turned up lots of forged documents, especially insurance forms fraudulently filled out by well people on behalf of sick people. Next was George Chenkin, a New York detective who was so good at tracking criminals that there was a $5,000 underworld bounty on his head. The final chapter was about a legendary German shepherd police dog named Dox, nicknamed "Il Gigante" by Italian bandits. Before Dox's crime-fighting career, his owner made $11,000 over a period of a few years by betting men in bars that Dox could track anyone in the bar to his home. Dox's unbelievable ability to track people came to the attention of the police and Dox entered police work. Dox had a long memory for scents too. Once when his owner was walking him, Dox caught a scent and pulled his owner into a restaurant and straight to a man eating at a table. It turned out the man was a criminal Dox had tracked and caught six years before, but who had recently escaped from prison.

May 3, 2006

World War II POW Escape Story: The Wooden Horse


Last night I finished reading The Wooden Horse by Eric Williams, illustrated by Martin Thomas (New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1958). The book tells the exciting true story of the author's escape from a German prison camp during World War II. The escape was also the subject of a 1950 movie, The Wooden Horse.

[May 23, 2008 note: This post is about a version of The Wooden Horse written by Eric Williams for teenagers at the request of Williams' publisher. In the introduction Williams says he decided to write the book as a fiction to make the story more "vivid". - Jon Maloney]

Eric Williams was an Englishman in the Royal Air Force who was shot down over Germany in his bomber in December 1942. He was taken prisoner and sent to the Stalag-Luft III prison camp. (Stalag-Luft III consisted of several enclosures. The north enclosure of the same prison was famous for the 1944 escape known as The Great Escape.) The camp was built in a cleared area of a pine forest. The eight barracks were in the center surrounded by clear ground, and elevated to discourage tunneling. German soldiers frequently inspected the ground beneath the buildings. There were also a couple of soldiers who wandered around the camp entering buildings without notice and generally snooping on the prisoners. The open area around the buildings was enclosed by a single trip wire. Anyone crossing the tripwire was shot. Several feet beyond the trip wire was a high fence with barbed wire and guard towers. Arc lights illuminated the area between the trip wire and the fence. At night soldiers in the towers scanned the yard with searchlights and guard dogs were released into the compound. If a prisoner was able to leave his hut and avoid the searchlights he would probably be caught by the dogs. The ground's surface was covered with a powdery gray dust. The dirt beneath the surface was yellow sand, which made hiding dirt from a tunnel and hiding the entrance to a tunnel extremely difficult. The buildings were so far from the fence that any tunnel would require hiding large amounts of yellow sand.

The author and another RAF officer had the idea of starting a tunnel from out near the trip wire and concealing the entrance underneath a wooden horse, the type used for vaulting in gymnastics. The plan was approved by the escape committee. It would be a two-man operation, and a two-man escape. Every step of the plan was exceedingly difficult. For example, they had to brave the dogs and searchlights at night just to get nails and wood with which to build the horse. They had to acclimate the guards to men carrying out the wooden horse to near the trip wire, vaulting for a couple of hours, and then carrying the horse back to the canteen every day. After a couple of weeks of assuaging the guards' suspicions and seeing the guards inspect the horse in the canteen at night, the men began the next steps of the plan. The horse was hollow and one of the two RAF officers would be inside the horse when it was carried out every day. He would fill a shoe box with the gray surface dust, start digging, and fill cloth bags made from trouser-leg bottoms obtained by convincing other prisoners to make shorts out of their trousers. The digger would hang the dirt bags from hooks inside the box. He had a wooden trap that was deep and sturdy enough that it would not give way if a guard walked on it. After he filled all the bags that could be carried with him in the box he would place the trap in the hole, fill it with yellow sand, pack it down, and spread the gray dust from the shoe box over the surface. Then the vaulters would carry the horse containing the digger and the dirt back to the canteen. The digger would have to get out, wash, and dress, and the bags of sand would have to be distributed around the camp. It was slow, tedious, and dangerous work. The digger was alone lying in pitch darkness in a narrow tunnel as he dug. The difficulty increased with the length of the tunnel. The air was bad, it took a long time to wriggle to the end, and it was hard to drag the dirt while wriggling backwards. They devised a container and a rope with which larger amounts of dirt could be pulled back to the entrance. At least once there was a cave-in and the digger had to save himself. There were many close calls with guards. Once guards searching a hut were covered with dirt when the hut's ceiling collapsed due to the weight of the dirt hidden there. The guards found a tunnel from the hut and incorrectly believed all the dirt they found was from that tunnel, so the tunnel under the wooden horse escaped discovery.

When the tunnel was almost complete a third man was added to the escape team to help with the work. The train schedule the men had obtained was only good for October, and October was almost over. The three men escaped at dusk on October 29, 1943. The escape committee had been able to provide them with forged papers, German money, a little food, pepper to stop the tracking dogs, and clothing that would help them pose as French workers. The two RAF officers were going to try to escape Germany openly by riding trains and staying in hotels, although neither man spoke much German and only one of them spoke French, badly. The third man was going to pose as a margarine salesman and try a different route alone. Every step of the journey across and out of Germany was hard. The cold weather, rain, language barrier, and lack of knowledge about everything from curfews to shipping practices made whatever they did a challenge. They went north by train, had trouble finding a hotel room, slept outside, frequented cafes, tried to make friends with French workers, found a hotel, forged passes in their room, finally made it to the Baltic Sea where they were chased by a soldier on the docks, and (with help) made it on board a Danish ship to Copenhagen (which was under German occupation). The Danish Resistance hid the two men and managed to get them onto a boat to Sweden. In Sweden the two escapees joined the third escapee who had also made it to Sweden. Eventually the three men made it back to an English base. The author noted that the British officers who interviewed him were less polite than the German officer who had interrogated him when he was captured. Later the three men were each awarded the Military Cross. The author was then sent to work with American forces in the Philippines. He wrote much of The Wooden Horse during his long voyage home.

April 19, 2006

The Pony Express by Samuel Hopkins Adams

Last night I finished reading The Pony Express by Samuel Hopkins Adams (Spencer Press, 1950). I found the book interesting, fun, and educational. The Pony Express was a cross-country mail-delivery route that went from St. Louis, Missouri to Sacramento, California in 1860 and 1861. The book relates the background, equipment, men, finances, politics, scandals, and heroic stories of the Pony Express.

The sparsely-populated California of the 1840s became a bustling country with hundreds of thousands of new arrivals during the 1850s as a result of the California gold rush. Easterners who had moved to California were desperate for news and letters from relatives back east. Likewise, people in the east were eager for news and letters from the west. The standard route mail followed from New York to California took three to six weeks. It travelled by steamship from New York to Panama, went overland through the Panama jungle, and travelled by steamship from Panama to San Francisco. Everyone hated the delay. News was scarce and out-of-date. The cost of a three-month-old New York Tribune in Sacramento was $8. (p. 48) Several companies tried to develop overland mail services, but they all failed due to bad terrain, bad weather, starvation, insufficient funds, and hostile Indians. Snow in the plains and mountains was the greatest obstacle. In 1857 Congress awarded John Butterfield a $600,000 contract to deliver mail by his "slow but safe" southern overland route that went from St. Louis, Missouri to San Francisco, California by way of Arkansas, Texas, and Arizona.

Russell, Majors, & Waddell was a successful and respected freight business that used oxen-drawn wagons to carry supplies to towns, forts, and mining settlements in the west. The three owners -- William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Waddell -- wanted to develop a faster and more reliable mail-delivery system that would serve the west until the east-west telegraph line was completed. They founded the "Central Overland & Pike's Peak Express Company" to run their new "Pony Express" mail service. They envisioned a well-maintained overland trail on which fast horsemen would deliver mail between St. Louis and Sacramento in ten days. The trail was almost 2,000 miles and went through Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. The company built the trail, built and supplied the relay stations, bought fast horses, and hired riders. According to one newspaper ad the riders had to be 19 to 25 years old, less than 130 pounds, of good moral character, able to read and write, and experienced with horses. (p. 28) The pay was $100 a month and included food and lodging. Company men carefully handpicked riders at both ends of the trail. There were dozens of applicants for every opening, so the company could be very selective. Each rider had to swear an oath that he would conduct himself honestly, be faithful to his duties, act so as to win the confidence of his employers, and that he would not use profane language, quarrel or fight with fellow employees, or drink liquor. (p. 38) In their training the men were taught to protect the mail first, their horses second, and their lives last. For the system to work the mail had to always go through.

The Pony Express started on April 3, 1860, and it worked. The mail rate was $5 an ounce, so letters were written on thin tissue paper. (p. 58) The mail was carried in hard leather boxes called "mochilas". The mochilas were delivered like batons in a relay race. Each rider got a fresh horse every 10 to 20 miles and rode about 75 miles before handing his mochila to the next rider. When another rider came from the other direction, the first rider would take the mail and ride back to his starting point, where another rider would take the mail and ride on. No delay in the schedule was ever considered. If the next rider was sick or not at a station, the rider to be relieved had to keep riding for another 75 miles or so until he could hand off the mail to the next rider. Riders rode day and night, and mail was delivered twice a week in both directions. The whole country loved the fast new mail service. Pony Express riders were treated like heroes. Crowds cheered the riders like sports fans cheer their favorite teams. Every good citizen wanted the Pony Express to succeed, and it did. (p. 111-112) In its nineteen months of operation before the east-west telegraph line was completed, the Pony Express only lost one mail delivery. (p. 86) Pony Express riders were known to be the best of the best. Former Pony Express riders were highly sought after by employers. Although the Pony Express succeeded at delivering the mail, it was a financial failure. The three owners spent $700,000 of their own money and received only $200,000 in payment. (p. 146) Congress never subsidized the Pony Express.

Several individual stories are worth relating. After proving he could shoot and ride, a persistent underage boy was hired at a Colorado station as an extra rider. One day he was needed for a special run. He was to carry a box of money along with the mail that day, but two bandits who had tried to rob a stagecoach were reported to be on the trail. The boy thought about the problem, put a blanket over the mail and money boxes, and then added decoy mail boxes filled paper over the second blanket. At a narrow spot in the trail he was stopped at gunpoint by the two bandits. The men said he would be filled with holes if he didn't give them the goods. He whined, "Oh, go on, take it then!" He threw the decoy mochila at the man, quickly drew his gun, and shot the man who was catching the mochila. He then rode down the second man with his horse and made good his escape, saving both the mail and the money. The boy was William F. Cody, later to become famous worldwide as Buffalo Bill. (p. 110) Wild Bill Hickock was another famous Pony Express employee. He was too tall and too heavy to be a rider, so he was hired as a stock tender at Rock Creek Station in Nebraska. (p. 160)

One of the most famous riders was Pony Bill Haslam. When he first met a horse he would flip it on the nose. If it didn't try to bite him he passed it up because it didn't have enough spirit. During the Pah-Ute Indian war in Nevada, he arrived at Reese River Station to change horses after riding 75 miles. The station was empty. All the horses and mules had been taken to fight the Indians. At Buckland Station 15 miles farther, the next rider refused to ride. No reason is known. Haslam switched horses and continued for 35 miles, switched horses, rode 37 miles, switched horses, and rode the final 30 miles to the next station where Jack Kelley took his mail. After riding hard for 190 miles Haslam fell immediately into a deep sleep on a cot at the station. Then he was awakened by the station man who said the eastbound rider had arrived crippled from a fall and couldn't continue. Haslam asked how long he had slept. The man told him an hour and a half. Haslam took the mochila and started his return trip. There were five dead men and no horses at a station where he had switched horses a few hours before. The warring Indians had been there. At the next station the superintendent forbade him to continue until dark because of the Indians. Haslam slept. He rode on at dusk, spotted Indians twice, and had to outrun Indians once. When he finally made it back to his starting point, he had ridden 380 miles on less than eleven hours sleep. (p. 115-118)

The rider who probably held the speed record was Bob Moore. In June 1860 government messages were sent to California with the instruction to "Rush". Moore rode his route but refused to let the less-experienced rider take the mochila at the hand-off station. He rode both routes; 140 miles. As soon as he handed off the mochila another rider came in from the west with special orders to "Rush", but the scheduled rider wasn't there (probably killed by outlaws or Indians). Moore took the mochila, rested for ten minutes, and took off back the way he had come. Moore made the whole run of 275 miles in 14¾ hours, for an average speed over 18 mph. (p. 118-119)

Jack Keetly held the record for the longest time in the saddle. When there was a shortage of riders he rode for 31 hours straight and covered 340 miles. (p. 120) Once in Utah a Mormon rider's horse stumbled and went over a cliff. The rider was saved by a scrub juniper pine at the top of the cliff. He climbed down the cliff to the dead horse, got the mochila, climbed up the cliff back to the trail, and carried the mail the last eight miles to the next station on foot. His name is not known. Twice mail arrived at stations on riderless horses. Once the rider had been ambushed and was dead on the prairie. (p. 86) Another time the rider was laying by the trail wounded. (p. 120) Once Tony King and Henry Worley were scheduled to pass each other on the trail in Colorado. King arrived at the station and said he hadn't seen Worley. Worley arrived at his station and told them they'd better send a search party after King. Searchers left from both stations. It turned out the riders had passed one another on the trail while asleep in their saddles. (p. 121-122)

April 16, 2006

We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing by James C. Whittaker

I have just read this 1943 account of eight men lost at sea when their airplane, a B-17 Flying Fortress, went down in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. The story is written in the first person by Lieutenant James Whittaker of the U.S. Army Air Corps Transport Command. He was the copilot and eldest crewman. A passenger on board was Eddie Rickenbacker, the famous war hero who had shot down a record 26 enemy aircraft in World War I. Whittaker wrote We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing from his recollections, from entries in his diary, and from a series of stories about the ordeal in the Chicago Tribune. Since World War II was still being fought when the book was published, some details were omitted regarding the plane, equipment, mission, destination, and rescue location.

The introduction "The Loneliest of Oceans" by Charles Leavelle remembers the famous and unsuccessful searches for Amelia Earhart and Sir Charles Kingford-Smith. Leavelle emphasizes the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. He says it covers over 68 million square miles and more than a third of the globe. He says when Captain William Bligh of the H.M.S. Bounty was set adrift in 1789 he travelled 4,000 miles without encountering any land. Even more amazing, he says Magellan sailed almost 12,000 miles without seeing land.

Whittaker's crew delivered a B-24 Liberator to Hickam Field in Honolulu, Hawaii and was scheduled for a stateside leave, but the leave was cancelled and they were given a new mission to fly Captain Eddie Rickenbacker and his aide somewhere on a secret mission for the War Department. The crew consisted of: Captain William T. Cherry, Jr. (pilot and mission commander), Lieutenant James C. Whittaker (copilot), Second Lieutenant John J. DeAngelis (navigator), Sergeant Alex Kaczmarczyk (engineer), Staff Sergeant James W. Reynolds (radio operator), and Private John Bartek (second engineer). The passengers were Captain Eddie Rickenbacker and his aide Colonel Hans Adamson.

Halfway into the takeoff of their B-17 one of the wheels partially locked and they veered off the runway toward the hangers. Cherry managed to put the plane into a tight 50-mph spin to avoid hitting the buildings and keep the plane on the field until it lost momentum. DeAngelis, the navigator, mentioned that his octant had been thrown across the nose compartment during the spin and suffered quite a blow against the side of the plane, but it appeared to be okay. They transferred their gear to another B-17 and took off at 1:30 AM on October 21, 1942. Many hours later they missed the island that was their first stop, possibly due to the damaged octant. After various unsuccessful attempts to determine their position they ran low on fuel and had to fly the plane into the sea.

In the confusion after impact the man who had been assigned to bring the food and water forgot his assignment. When they got the three tiny rafts inflated and took inventory of their supplies they discovered they had no water and only four anemic oranges they had found floating beside the plane. Their other supplies included: air pumps for the rafts, two knives, two flare guns, 18 flares, two .45 caliber pistols, aluminum oars, some fishing line, and some fish hooks. The three rafts were incredibly small. Three men were assigned to each of the two larger rafts which had inside dimensions of only 5½ x 2½ feet. The third raft was too small for just one man, but two men had to use it. After much experimentation the only way they could sit was facing each other with their legs over each other's shoulders. After they tied the rafts together and settled on seating arrangements they noticed the water around the rafts was filled with sharks. The sharks were always there from that point on. What followed was 21 days adrift with starvation, dehydration, praying, roasting under the hot daytime sun, shivering at night, skin ulcers, and delirium. One man died -- Kaczmarczyk, the engineer. Rickenbacker was the strongest personality and vehemently cussed out any man who expressed any negativity or uncertainty about rescue. The author thought some of the men survived just to spite Rickenbacker.

Several events are worth mentioning. It rained a few times. Those rains were the only source of drinkable water. One day the rafts capsized and most of the supplies were lost, including the flare guns and flares. One day a "sea swallow" ("about half the size of a seagull" p. 60) landed on Rickenbacker's head. Rickenbacker managed to catch the bird. The men shared the tiny bit of meat and baited fish hooks with the bird's guts. They managed to catch two small fish that way. Each man got a fish steak about one inch square. One day a school of minnows swam past and the men were able to scoop enough minnows into the rafts so that each man got to eat three 2½-inch minnows. One night two fish being chased by barracuda jumped into a raft. One day they caught a baby shark about two feet long and ate it, however, in killing it they stuck a hole in the bottom of a raft. One day a ten-foot shark flipped its tail catching Captain Cherry full in the face and breaking his nose. One of the author's most vivid memories was a hallucination he experienced in which he slid over the side, sank to the bottom, and had a conversation with Davy Jones and Jim Blood on the bottom.

On the eighteenth day they saw a patrol plane pass in the distance. They saw it twice more on the nineteenth day. On the twentieth day they cut the rafts loose from one another in hopes that three separated targets had a greater chance of being seen than one target. Captain Cherry took the smallest raft. The next day Whittaker's raft made it to an island where DeAngelis, Reynolds, and Whittaker ate coconuts and discovered an abandoned hut where they slept. On the twenty-third day they met with natives who took them to a village and radioed the nearest US outpost. Meanwhile Captain Cherry had been spotted and rescued by a search plane. Then Rickenbacker's group was also found and rescued. Rickenbacker, Cherry, Whittaker, DeAngelis, and Adamson were flown to a hospital in Samoa where they made complete recoveries. Bartek and Reynolds were too sick to fly to Samoa, but they too were treated and recovered. Captain Cherry was sent to Washington to help redesign life rafts. Whittaker was ordered to visit west-coast factories telling his survival story to war production workers.

We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing was published in 1943 by E. P. Dutton & Company. It is illustrated with drawings and photographs.

An illustrated account of the story including details of the rescue location can be read online here.

Update: Eddie Rickenbacker also wrote a book telling the story, Seven Came Through.

Update: There is a third book about the same ordeal, by John Bartek, Life Out There.

Update: According to David Weed, John Bartek's grandson, Bartek's book Life Out There was written by a ghost writer and Bartek did not approve of the book. Bartek later wrote another book about the ordeal "My Raft Episode, 21 Days Adrift at Sea". See the comment by David Weed below, dated September 10, 2013.


April 12, 2006

The Neanderthal Parallax by Robert J. Sawyer


I have just finished reading The Neanderthal Parallax trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer. The story follows a handful of scientists after a quantum experiment opens a portal between our version of Earth and an alternate version of Earth in which Neanderthals became the dominant human species. The story allows the author to examine our society, science, culture, and religion as an outsider might -- criticizing humanity's errors and identifying questionable scientific assumptions. The author also shares his vision of what a Neanderthal world might be like.

I judge science fiction on its stimulating ideas. A good story with well-developed characters is desirable, but often missing. The Neanderthal Parallax tells an interesting story revolving around two fairly-deep main characters. Ponter Boddit is extremely likable. The supporting characters are shallow, particularly in the second and third books. I highly recommend reading the first book, Hominids (which won the Hugo Award in 2003) and skipping the next two books. Hominids is filled with educational and thought-provoking ideas about anthropology, physics, paleontology, genetics, and religion. The second book, Humans, includes more romance than scientific speculation, although there is at least one fascinating discussion among scientists about halfway through. The third book, Hybrids, is the weakest of the three. I was quite disappointed in the last fifty pages, which include a big unnecessary coincidence, characters behaving unbelievably, and use of a clichéd plot device that writers wore out decades ago. The most interesting parts of the third book deal with neurotheology.

April 3, 2006

Webmasters -- Files in 404 Error Log

There are several recurring 404 errors I see in my 404 error log each month. I investigated some of the more mysterious file names. Perhaps the list below will save other webmasters some research.

_vti_inf.html
_vti_rpc
owssvr.dll
cltreq.asp
siteinfo.xml
noexist_....html
666666

_vti_inf.html
This is an information file that shows what FrontPage Server Extensions are installed, their version, and what type of server they're installed on. I assume this file is requested if your web site is accessed using FrontPage. Some sites say this file is requested if your web site is viewed via MS Office.

_vti_rpc
This is a Microsoft FrontPage file. It is probably requested when your site is viewed using FrontPage.

owssvr.dll (see section "More Information")
This file is used by Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services to process discussion requests. Some sites say it is requested from Internet Explorer when the Discuss Toolbar is turned on.

cltreq.asp
I found several sites that say this file is requested when a visitor who has MS Office installed uses Internet Explorer to view your site and has the Discuss Toolbar turned on.

siteinfo.xml
A site owner can list his site's main pages in this file. The file is requested by the A9 Toolbar, A9 SiteInfo - Firefox Extension, and any other toolbar that uses the standard. If the file is present the site visitor can click a button on the toolbar and get a drop-down menu of pages on the site.

noexist_[code deleted here].html
I haven't found out anything definite about this one, but it seems to be related to Google Sitemaps. The long code I deleted from the file's name above is a Google Sitemaps verification code.

666666
I don't know what someone or some program is looking for when it seeks 666666, but that file name has been sought in more than one month. It could be a hex color code, an ICQ number, or who knows what.

April 1, 2006

Car Heater Problem -- Check Your Coolant Level

The heater in my 1996 Mercury Sable didn't work right. The heater would blow hot air for about 30 seconds and then the air would turn cold. I checked the fuses. They were fine. I checked the external coolant reservoir and it appeared to be dry. So poured a gallon of antifreeze into the reservoir. (I knew I should add a 50-50 mixture of antifreeze and water, but I was traveling in the mountains and the store where I was still had insulated covers on the outdoor faucets.) The heater worked perfectly and the temperature gauge stayed near the center of the dial all the way home. At home I added about a quart of water and brought the level in the reservoir to the maximum cold-fill line.

I was amazed by what I read in the car's manual about coolant. Here's an excerpt. "Have your dealer check the engine cooling system for leaks if: you have to add engine coolant more than once a month, or you have to add more than a quart (liter) at a time". I have had the car since 2003 and I have never added coolant. Apparently losing coolant is acceptable in a Mercury as long as you don't lose more than a quart a month. Amazing.

In my defense for not checking the coolant, I was spoiled by my Toyota. I drove a Tercel for 19 years, from 1984 to 2003, and I never added coolant. I checked it periodically and it was always to the top of the radiator and my antifreeze tester always showed that I was protected to a reasonable temperature. Of course the coolant was flushed and replaced a few times at recommended intervals based on the maintenance schedule, but other than that I never had to worry about it. When I gave the car away in 2003 it still had the original radiator hose, and the hose was still in good shape. I drove the car for 19 years and it never broke down, never stranded me, and never even had a flat tire. I guess I'm about to learn that Mercurys aren't made to last like that.

March 31, 2006

Lake Lure Restaurants

In this entry I'll comment on the restaurants my family ate at in Lake Lure, North Carolina last week (March 21-25, 2006). Before going to Lake Lure I tried to read about Lake Lure restaurants online and found very little information. Perhaps someone will find these brief comments helpful.

Point of View Restaurant
Highway 64 at Buffalo Shoals Road (near the dam), Lake Lure, NC.
We each got the twice-a-week special of mountain trout for $13.95. The trout filets were large and covered with sliced almonds. Delicious. Meals came with a tossed salad and a choice of baked potato, spaghetti marinara, rice pilaf, or… linguini, I think. The waitress ground fresh and tasty black pepper onto our salads at the table. My Coke glass didn't hold very much, was mostly ice, and cost $1.75. The tables were too close together which made simple movements, like removing our coats, difficult without hitting people at adjacent tables.

Larkins on the Lake
Highway 64 at the intersection with highway 9, Lake Lure.
Most of us got the prime rib, which was around $21. The food was good but expensive. I found the room hot and stuffy.

Lake Lure Inn and Spa
Highway 64 across from the Lake Lure beach.
The Lake Lure Inn was built in the 1920s. The lobby is filled with interesting art, antiques, portraits, and several coin-operated music machines. M.J.'s is the name of the dining room, which is elegant with white linen tablecloths and white cloth napkins. Our waitress, Laura, was friendly, fun, and efficient. She answered most of our questions about Lake Lure, "Dirty Dancing", and the 2006 Home and Garden Dream Home. The lunch buffet was only $6.95 ($9.95 on Sunday). We ate there twice. The first day's buffet had spinach salad, Caesar salad, beef and vegetable soup, cooked broccoli and cauliflower, rolls, chicken pot pie, sliced turkey, sausage casserole (my favorite), cobbler, chocolate brownies with whipped cream, and other dishes I don't recall. The second day's buffet had tossed salad, potato salad, cream of mushroom soup, rolls, macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, Brussels sprouts in cream sauce, buttered carrots, chicken tenders, meatloaf, lemon cobbler, chocolate brownies with whipped cream, and other dishes. This was my favorite restaurant of our trip, and a real bargain at $6.95.

Lakeside Pizza
2594 Memorial Highway (64) in Lake Lure somewhere along the stretch between Larkins and the Lake Lure Inn.
This place didn't look like much from the outside but the food was good. They offered pizzas, several pasta dishes, and hot subs. We got two 14-inch pizzas for five people and had four slices left over. Our appetites had been partially sated by an appetizer of garlic knots, which were tasty balls of pizza dough filled with cheese. I don't recall the prices except that additional pizza toppings were $1.35 each. I remember that because we looked at a menu for La Strada (near the Lake Lure Inn) and noticed that La Strada charged $1.95 for each additional pizza topping.

Bayfront Bar & Grill
Highway 64 at the intersection with highway 9, Lake Lure (downstairs in the same building with Larkins on the Lake).
This bar and restaurant was crowded, noisy, and had slow service. The hamburgers ranged from $7 to $10. Hamburgers came with a small salad or coleslaw or French fries. My hamburger was overcooked and one edge of the patty was burned black and hard. My father got the French onion soup and said it was excellent.

Laura's House
Highway 64 in Chimney Rock just west of Lake Lure.
We arrived at Laura's House on Friday evening before 6:00, eagerly anticipating the home-style catfish, fried chicken, meatloaf, and vegetables for which the restaurant is known. We went in, rang the bell to be seated, and rang the bell again. Finally a man came out and told us they closed at 5:00. We were disappointed and did not understand why a restaurant in a tourist town would close at 5:00 on Friday, even in the off season.