From backhoes to Bach

It was a day to stand watch with amazement as threads from long ago loop through each other and stretch on to the future. The day had three simple chores at my father's house - meet with the folks who'd be installing propane tanks, meet with the engineer who'd be designing the new septic system, and taking a carload of sauna wood from the basement to the camp. - followed by an evening of music at the annual piano recital.

And, here's how it went:

• The guy who'd be installing the propane tanks (with his grandson doing most of the heavy lifting) went to trade school with my father in the 30s. He still thought my father lived on Pine Street in Gardner, at my grandparents' home. I explained how this house came to be and how my grandparents moved next door in the early 60s.
  
• The guy with the backhoe would be digging the test holes for the septic system. I recognized the last name. He was a few years younger than me, but I knew his older brothers.
  
• I didn't know the engineer, but he had a Grateful Dead sticker on his truck. A woman from the engineering company had married into a large family who shared a camp at Queen Lake. We often see her husband paddling his kayak around the lake.
• The fellow who is refinishing the floors in the house is a long-time friend of Mike's and, in the antediluvian era, was a debating opponent of mine when we were in high school.

I watched as the backhoe operator dug three big holes in the front yard, where the septic system has been. It may be too wet there. (For readers who don't own property in Massachusetts, this work is required to meet Title V requirements. Title V specifies how water and sewer systems must be built to ensure clean water in neighboring wells and in other water sources. When you sell a house, not only must the system pass inspection, but you must guarantee that it will work for one year.) Plan B led to three big holes in the woods behind the house. As I watched the operator dig three more holes, I studied the pine trees that I used to climb as a kid. The trees are taller now and the lower branches have fallen away, so climbing would be tough. The trees are tall enough to block some of the sunlight in the winter, sunlight that my father used to keep his house warm.

Lots of people who can load and unload a truck full of wood after a day's work; some will even cut and split the wood as well. So, loading and unloading a Subaruful of wood shouldn't be front page news, but, for me, it was the mark of a good day. The wood that I brought to the camp will likely give us saunas for the rest of this year. The wood is split small and very dry, so we'll get good, hot saunas quickly.

The piano recital was held in the Town Hall, a classic New England building in the center of town. There were a couple dozen performers, hosted by their teacher. Tess and Krista delighted us with pieces from Scott Joplin while Mike lit up the hall with Mozart's Fantasia in D Minor.

A long time ago, I took a music appreciation course. The teacher, a woman, said that because men do better at math than women, they're more inclined to like Bach. Take that as you will. The only Bach piece played at the recital was by a young boy.

It's said that the mark of a truly cultured person is the ability to listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger. So, as we listen to one of students play Dance of the Hours by Ponichelle, I heard the words to Allan Sherman's Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh.

Do we need a stopwatch or a calendar?

It keeps getting easier for small businesses to put ads on cable television. As a result, you can hear statements such as this, from an auto repair business in Worcester:

Guaranteed fast service, no matter how long it takes.

That turbulence in the water

Fish in Massachusetts are trembling. Sandra and I recently picked up our fishing licenses. They shall know us by our worms.

Or, we might use lures. Or, as the guy at the Phillipston chicken barbecue said, shiners.

The chicken barbecue on Saturday was a part of Phillipston's 50th country fair. We drove through frog-strangling downpours in Fitchburg on our way to the fair, arriving on the town common where not a drop of rain fell all day.

The flea market filled the gymnasium of the elementary school. There you could find Drydene machine lubricant, a rusty electric fence controller, and child car seats into which you could put a child you didn't like very much. There were several two-burner gas stovetops, scary contraptions capable of igniting a kitchen with just a crosswise glance. Still, there were plenty of fun and safe things as well. Most people found at least one thing worthy of purchase. One of the flea market coordinators had purchased and was wearing a beaded necklace that Sandra had contributed.


Mid-day, a pianist was happily playing ragtime tunes on an electric piano in the foyer of the church, the music filling the common from speakers on the front steps.

Inside the old church, quilters from the town and around hung samples of their work from the balcony railings. The quilts, nearly all hand-stitched, were bold and charming. Each had a story that described how and why the quilt was made.

The church had wooden pews, stained dark, with doors for each section. At one time, families would have their own reserved pews.

But, this was a story about fishing. I haven't been fishing in a very long time, since I was a kid and didn't need a license. Back then, the Gardner News published a chart that showed which days in the coming week would be good for fishing. It was about as accurate as an astrological chart, but it was easier to believe. I don't remember why I didn't continue fishing. The last that I remember was working on a horned pout that had swallowed the hook; I was stung a couple of times and fishing stopped being fun.

So, we'll try again. We'll have a family fishing derby this weekend in honor of Father's Day. We will have prizes for the most, least, largest, smallest, cutest, and ugliest fish caught. If we catch something edible, we'll figure how to eat it.

The Massachusetts Wildlife agency publishes a booklet to help us understand the fishing regulations and to know, in case we've forgotten, what a small-mouth bass or northern pike looks like. At the back of the booklet, they publish sunrise and sunset times for the year. (The one we received gave the times for Worcester along with offsets for different places in the state. Boston is about three minutes earlier and Pittsfield is about five minutes later.) For the next week, we'll have the earliest sunrises, about 5:10AM, EDT. The latest sunset, 8:28PM, occurs in late June into early July.

This just in.

It takes a big, fancy British medical journal to tell us that antidepressants don't help cancer patients who don't have depression.

Sometimes I sit and think. Sometimes I just sit.

With a strong, cool breeze and the temperature in the mid-40s, we need a fire in the stove this morning.

The birds and squirrels will eat as much bird seed as I offer. Our five feeders can hold about 40 pounds of seed and that can be gone in a day. Last weekend, I picked up some of Dave's private blend that includes the sweet smell of cherry bits. The seed is just about gone. Dave's feed doesn't seem to attract new birds, but makes the regular visitors happier.

I was able to get to Dave's because it was time for my annual trek back to my alma mater. The school has quite a few brand-name graduates. This year's commencement speaker was Patrick Fitzgerald, '82, the special prosecutor who brought the case against Scooter Libby.My work was off to the side, in a quiet room near one of the school's several chapels. As a result, I wasn't able to go to any of the other campus events, missing the opportunity to hear other alums and faculty, including one of my thesis advisers. Nevertheless, I was where I needed to be.

Yesterday, I attended an orientation session for the Stress Reduction program at the UMass Medical School. Since its inception in 1979, more than 16,000 people have gone through the program, including my mother, Jan, and friend Dan. Bill Moyers reported on the program in his 1993 report, "Healing and the Mind," and in this interview in Psychology Today. In brief, with the practice of meditation and the principle of mindfulness, one can learn new ways of understanding stress and the thoughts that accompany it.

The course starts in two weeks. The leader told us that we should plan for 45 minutes to an hour of homework every day. She also said that, because of other participants' allergies, we should not use perfume, deodorants, or after-shave lotions. No deodorant in the summer? We'll see how good an idea this is.

Oh, and there were Republicans on TV last night, 10 white guys incapable of answering a yes/no question with a yes or no. By the way, Gov. Romney, it's unalienable, not inalienable.

Canada's got a pretty good approach to this form of air pollution. You can't start campaigning until an election is officially called, giving you somewhere between 36 and 55 days in a federal election.

One more thing to frost your mini-wheats: Sen. Lynne Cheney, R-Wyoming?
(fifth story)

As my history professor used to say, ...

Every act is a political act and has political consequences.

Believe me. I tried to watch the Democrats' debate last night. I really tried. Each candidate wa given 60 seconds to give us slightly fresh answers to the stale questions that we have heard on every news and talk show for months. This format drives the wrong kind of behavior, rewarding people who think in small, tactical aphorisms. Even good Dennis Kucinich answered a question about counter-terrorism with a worn-out quote from Benjamin Franklin about security and personal freedom. We needed, instead, his ideas about how we should deal with the bad guys in our midst. After about 15 minutes, I switched channels and watched Larry the Cable Guy until it was time to go to bed.

Make way for donuts

We had another quick trip to PEI last weekend, a good trip, although exhausting. We learned that if we open the rear window on the driver's side, Marley would stick his head out and the good folks at Tim Horton's would give him a few Timbits.

Islanders, like most North Americans, are serious about donuts. A donut franchise, name not disclosed, has purchased a corner lot in Montague. One of the parcels was owned by Sandra's cousin; they're in the process of moving the house to a new location along the river.

But, the big news of the summer is that Aerosmith will play in Charlottetown on July 21.

A travel reminder for this summer: The state of Maine would much rather that you bring or buy food for your journey on the Maine Turnpike.

Shortly after we crossed the border into St. Stephens, we stopped at a roadside stand where a guy was selling fiddleheads. The sign said $3/bag, but all he had on his little folding table were $5 bags. He had to rummage around to find a smaller bag when Sandra insisted that she only wanted to pay the $3. Fiddleheads taste like small, green peppers stuffed with grass clippings. They can also carry toxins that can make you quite sick, as Sandra discovered.

Who would have thought that good coffee would be on the wrong side of the environmental movement? Increasingly, people are buying coffee that's packaged in aluminum, paper, or plastic bags, materials that don't have much of a second life. (As I've mentioned before, we've been buying our coffee from Equal Exchange for 10 or so years. Although they do good things on the coffee plantations, the coffee arrives in bags that are tossed when they're empty.)

A coffee bag can't match the utility of a humble Hills Bros. coffee can when you need help to prime a water pump. Dunno the age of the coffee can, but it came from a time when a one-pound can contained one pound of coffee.

It's OK, folks. We don't have to worry about electing a Mormon as our president. Mitt Romney shows that he's a regular guy.

Harvard recently hosted a forum on gender roles in higher education, particularly among the Ivy League schools. (Half of the Ivy League college presidents are female.) 'Course, in the photo, that accompanied the story in the Boston Globe, I first noticed that the participants are sitting in Nichols & Stone chairs, from Gardner.

Speaking of Gardner, the convenience store that's a part of the Gulf station on City Hall Ave. has a sign that says that a person cannot buy more than three cell phones from the store per day. Send their customers some of these.

A recent issue of the Raivaaja reported that Finland is less relevant to the United States these days, in large measure due to the end of the cold war. Finland, with its proximity to the Soviet Union, was an important part of the diplomacy of the time (and also a base for U.S. intelligence operations). The Finns aren't letting this get to them: they've sent in the clowns.

Ready for the world

The other day, Lynn called to ask if I would be able to babysit Cassie for a couple of hours. I said, "Yes," eagerly.

Cassie's 2^1/2. We had the Alladin video on, but it was a bit too intense to hold her attention. (The genie is the part that Robin Williams was born to play, so you'd better be ready. The would-be wiseguy parrot is, likewise, a perfect match for Gilbert Gottfried.) Soon, however, it was time to visit with Barbie.

There were lots of dolls in Cassie's room, along with the many accessories that bring a doll to life - houses, backpacks, blankets, and so on. Even the headless Barbie took her place among the pantheon of playthings. Listening to the creaks and cracks of my joints, I sat down on the floor with Cassie and played at playing with dolls.

A friend of mine refers to the young children in her family as "The Endorphins," a great, natural source of pain relief and joy. Me, too. I had a good time and hope that she did, too. Sometimes, grandparents think that they're being helpful when, in fact, they're scaring the kids.

Oh, about the picture. All of the kids have had fun playing with the stuff in my shirt pocket. Usually, they go for the red pen. This day, Cassie grabbed my pen and notebook, as if to say, "Look out, world. I'm watching you."

The color of the sky in Ann Coulter's world

If you scratch your head with your 9mm handgun before going into the school for your teaching job, you, IMO, should not have a permit for either a handgun or teaching: Teacher Arrested After Handgun Found In Car - Central Florida News 13

Unless you're in Texas: (Texas Governor Rick) Perry: Allow concealed handguns anywhere in Texas

Just another kilokilometer

If you ever hear us say "Road Trip!" please make sure that someone hides our car keys.

Google maps reports that it's 702 miles (1129.76 kilometers) from our house to the MacGregors' house on PEI. Going there, we have the energy of anticipation. On the return home, particularly after such a quick turnaround, Tim Horton's provides the spark.

On Friday we had an early (3 PM), very nice dinner at Whim Inn at Poole's Corner. Sandra remembered that she saw Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip at Poole's Corner during their visit to Prince Edward Island. The food was filling and comforting, just the stuff that weary travelers would enjoy. The restaurant is open year-round, but rooms won't be available for rent for another three weeks. Woody asked if the inn was for sale; the waitress said that it's always for sale.

Lobster season starts tomorrow (May 1st) on the east end of the island and run through the end of June. Traps are stacked high at the Cardigan harbor. Sandra will return in late May for the Cardigan lobster supper.

Leaving for home, we drove through a heavy rain until we were off the island. It was mostly cloudy, with alternating showers and breaks in the overcast. My favourite diner is Carman's in St. Stephen NB. This visit was disappointing. The breakfast food was good, but the service was lousy. We were there for more than an hour when we should have been in and out in 25 minutes. There are plenty of other good places on either side of the border, so it'll be a long before we return to Carman's.

I had a copy of Tom Friedman's latest book, The World is Flat, on my iPod. It's a compelling book, even if the style is kinda breathless. Every few hours we switched from the book to the radio news.

The house was in good order when we arrived home, spring in its full zest. The vitality is so compelling that we'll forgive the dandelion on the front lawn.

And so, it's back to what passes for normal. While I flipping through the old magazines in the hospital waiting room this morning, I learned that Meredith Vieira started her professional career at WORC in Worcester. I wonder if she still knows how to pronounce Worcester properly.

One of our favorite TV shows is Beat The Press, a review of media and journalism on Emily Rooney's Greater Boston. Because we were in PEI, we weren't able to watch the show at its appointed hour on Friday evening. I found a moderate successful workaround - downloading the video podcast and playing it on our laptop. I think that I have the plugs, cables, and pixie dust necessary to send the show from the laptop to our TV. The video worked OK, but I couldn't get the audio from the laptop to play through the TV's speakers. There's always one more gozinta, isn't there.

After the stars, before the sun

There's about an hour between first light and sunrise and, in that dim time, our caravan set off to PEI. We all remarked that there was a lot of traffic at the early hour. Traffic was light, but steady, until a midpoint between Portland and Augusta. There was, as we'd expect, more traffic on Route 2 at 5AM than at rush hour in Moncton.

Sandra drove her parents' Blazer and I drove our Subaru, Sandra in the lead. Our wagon is better suited for Marley. He was more pesty than usual, such that I needed to put the back seats upright and have him ride in the wayback for the last four hours of the trip.

Woody and Marian took turns as passengers in each car. We talked a bit, sharing observations of this ride and stories of trips past. In between stories, we listened to recorded books and the radio.

The weather was fine, the bright sun a problem in just a few places. There were patches of snow in the culverts from the Maine Turnpike to PEI. Just south of Bangor, an eagle circled overhead. There's an eagle preserve just past the Irving station in Calais, Maine; we saw a mother feeding eaglets in a tree-top nest. Along the Airline Route and beyond, farmers were burning their blueberry fields to make ready for this season's crop. The Airline Route, where there are more wheels on houses than on cars, was a gravel road when Woody was a child. Now it's well-paved with generous passing lanes on the hills.

We have our favorite and familiar stops along the way: the first rest area on the Maine Turnpike (near Kennebunk), several near Bangor/Brewer, the Irving station just outside of Calais, sometimes the duty-free shop at the border, either Tim Horton's or Carman's diner in St. Stephen, the Grey Fox just west of Magnetic Hill, and so on.

The Grey Fox is a large Irving truck stop atop a very breezy hill in Salisbury NB. The food and coffee are good and they sell an amazing array of strange stuff suitable for the road-weary trucker or the bored child. Even better, there's a Dairy Queen across the street. (Remember when you order your Blizzard that they use Smarties instead of M&Ms as the mix-in.)

When we used to have to take a ferry for crossing to the Island, family lore required that you pass 15 cars from the Elgin rotary to the port at Cape Tormentine. No more. We can drive at our leisure because the crossing is now by bridge. We had some excitement, nonetheless. We'd put three suitcases on top of the Blazer, held in place by rope and bungee cords. While on the road to Tormentine, the large yellow suitcase decided to take a different route and flew off the car and onto the road. I was driving a safe distance behind, but, because of traffic, I had nowhere to go but over the suitcase. Damage was minor, with just tire tracks on the suitcase. We met up with Sandra and Marian a few kilometers down the road. We made room for the three suitcases in the cars. We had good fun imaging that, had the suitcase opened, we might have had someone's underwear scattered across the road and newly-tilled potato fields.

The house is in pretty good shape. The house having settled over the years, the outside doors are sometimes difficult to open. Inside was nice and even better when with a fire in the wood stove. The bladder in the water tank developed a leak and needed replacement. The repair guy came out first thing this morning and quickly had water flowing in only the places that it should.

I did a bit of maintenance work on Marian's computer. (Anyone remember how much fun it is to download a Windows service pack on a dial-up connection?)

The Island is starting to get ready for the summer tourist season. Many seasonal businesses won't open until Mother's Day, but some can't wait. The sign in front of Gillis's drive-in restaurant, on the outskirts of Montague, says:

Mmm. Fries with gravy
Open April 26

What the yard brings

The back yard has dried out from last week's 5+" of rain, letting the ants rebuild their hills in the sandy soil.

From my grandmother's knitted, crocheted, woven, and sewn work, you'd never suspect that she had what she called arthuritis. (My father could, we as might suspect, be a bit of a pain at times.) She couldn't use the spring-loaded clothespins, relying, instead, on the push-on kind. We've inherited those clothespins and use them when we dry towels and such on clothesline in back near the wood pile.

One of my doctors remarked that, while I am out of work, one of his treatment goals for me is to ensure that I do not become a regular viewer of the Jerry Springer show. The only daytime TV that I watch is CNN and then only on days with significant news. Last week, for example, brought the tragedy at Virginia Tech and the Gonzales hearings, along with the ever-increasing death toll in Iraq that's become wallpaper for our news channels. (In another post, I'll collect my thoughts regarding TV, radio, print, and the web, looking at contemporary media through a McLuhan filter.)

So, instead of watching Wolf, I line up tasks that are well-defined, such that I know what to do, know how to do it, and can report on what I've done and how well I did it. My daily task list includes chores such as bring in firewood, make various phone calls, pick up clothes at the dry cleaner's shop, stuff like that. This morning's list includes a task that's more vexing than it might seem. We have a thermometer with a wireless outdoor sensor. The challenge comes when I try to find a spot that has the least exposure to sunlight. It should be a foot above the ground (or snow), open to the sky so that cold or hot air is not trapped around it, and, as mentioned before, away from direct sunlight as much as possible. In the spring and summer, all 360° of the house receives some sunlight; the northeast corner receives the least solar warmth. Unfortunately, the wireless path from that corner to the base station passes through the MacGregors' laundry room. Washing machines are not very transparent for radio signals. This task, then, combines aspects of meteorology, astronomy, and radio science into a bit of fun.

By the way, we can always rely on our favorite three-alarm nutjob to take us down the path of heavenly distraction: "Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws."

We have red-winged blackbirds visiting our feeders, reminding me of the only book that I know of that features a technical writer as a major character: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Spring forward, for varying values of forward

We received more than five inches of rain from the week's storm, plus a few inches of snow that hung around for a short while. Today the sky is clear, the sun is bright, and it's 50° at coffee break time — as much of a pronouncement of spring as we can expect in New England.

Today also marks the end of the second full week away from my job. About three weeks ago, it became clear that my recovery and return to work wasn't going as hoped. Simply put, I wasn't able to do the work. My efforts were only digging the hole deeper. So, after good conversations with HR and the senior director of our group, we worked out what I regard as a generous severance agreement. My job now is to get better.

I'm learning a lot anew — accepting help when it's offered rather than insisting that I can do things by myself that I can't, accepting suggestions rather than holding on to old ways of planning my day, old ways that have, as the management euphemism declares, been overcome by events. Writing is hard because the thinking that precedes it is hard. I'm grateful for all the help that I'm receiving and that gratitude helps me move forward.

Are we impactful yet?

During a year-in-review conference call, one of the marketing folks said that if we're successful in implementing our new strategies, we will be very impactful. She made it sound like a good thing.

Sprint/Nextel Will Fire Any Employee Caught Participating In Blogs - Consumerist

Just as New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day are set aside for amateur drinkers, so, too, does April 1^st let the general population a glimpse of life as the fooler and foolee. The real fools take April Fool's Day off. (Witness that Congress is not in session.)

The 2007 baseball season begins today, with the Olde Towne Team playing in Kansas City.

This morning I have meetings scheduled with my management and people in HR to try to decide what happens next at work. The last few weeks have been rough. I was out sick for two-and-a-half days last week and I accomplished very little during my hours in the office. The short description is that I can't do my job and don't know when I'll be able to do so. Today, one could reasonably assume, is going to be an impactful day.

Dept. of Error Messages

"[08:51] *** Error logging into AIM: Error code 29: We think this means the AIM/ICQ servers are sick of seeing connections from your IP address. Wait a few minutes and try again."

Use of Cellular Telephones in the Hospital Environment

Mayo Clinic Proceedings:
Researchers have concluded that cell phones do not appear to affect hospital equipment.

Researchers believe Nazi-looted art could be found in Finland

Researchers believe Nazi-looted art could be found in Finland

One of the researchers is Maarit Hakkarainen (no known relation, but maybe).

It's good to learn things, mostly.

We're making slow and erratic progress cleaning out my father's house. Mike and his crew are well along with the remodeling. I'm still seeing this house as the place where I grew and the place where my father lived alone for more than 35 years. Mike and his team are looking at it with the ideas of how another family might make this their home.

We found my grandparents' Russian passports. (They came here in 1908, when Finland was a Russian province.) Other documents were a mix of Finnish and Russian. It led us to wonder how much Russian my grandparents knew. Even as teenagers, they would have had some contact with the government and, likely, would have had to be able to read and speak a few words. It's a question that I never thought to ask. Perhaps my cousins on my mother's side might remember hearing something about the Russian influence in the daily lives of Finns.

The papers also included their citizenship papers, social security cards, and death certificates. My grandparents' caskets were guaranteed for 20 years.

Among the newspaper clippings that my grandparents saved was the announcement of my parents' wedding in the local Finnish newspaper. Neither my mother nor my father had kept anything like that, in any language.

Last night, we picked up an inch of snoo.

What's snoo?
Plenty, what's snoo with you?

I started back to work full-time this week. I've had good coaching from Sandra and from the EAP rep at work, particularly on the idea of keeping my work schedule to 40 hours per week. Good suggestion. I thought about it a lot during the past two, 11-hour days. (My boss's boss needed some material for an important meeting this morning. I met the deadline and only had to re-run the spell checker on one of the files.)

A couple of weeks ago, we walked in to the camp from the public beach, a bit less than a mile each way. In places where the ski mobiles had packed the snow, the walking was easy and fun. Where the snow was soft, however, it got tiring very quickly. That's how work has been - when the support is there, I can make good progress without much strain. When the support isn't there, my mood and energy get bogged down quickly. And then, when Marley takes off after a ski mobile, well, that's when the metaphor gets too complicated to sustain.

Our home computer just returned from a trip to the IBM spa. The hard drive went bad about a month ago. IBM sent me a replacement disk. (The machine was still under warranty.) Three times, they sent the wrong set of disks that would let me re-install the operating system. Finally, we agreed that they needed to do the re-installation. Although I do have good backups of our important stuff, it will take a good bit of work to get the machine back to a familiar working configuration.

Ten years ago today, we brought Marley home from the animal shelter. As some may remember, he ate a plastic wastebasket on the ride home. He's brought us good comfort and good fun these 10 years, all for the modest price of skritches on his head and back and a chance to lick out the frying pan.

Ice and Snow

Sunday morning Sandra and I drove to the camp. The road had a thin coat of last week's snow and lots of tracks where other cars and trucks had struggled on the hill. There were also snowmobile tracks that went the length of the road and then turned around in the driveway in front of our boathouse.

The camp was in good shape with no sign of trouble from the little critters who winter over inside. Years ago, the police chief would walk around the lake during the winter, leaving a note that said that on a particular day, the camp was ok. I don't know what he would have done if there was a problem - signs of winter damage, break-in, or the like. Call the cops, I guess.

On the lake, the wind had blown the snow into hard-packed drifts on the shore. The hard snow gave good traction, but when Marley ran across a clear patch, his feet slipped in all directions. We found a few fishing holes that had frozen over. We walked to the middle of the lake, listening to the booming ice. A group of people were fishing in the southern part of the lake. We waved to them and then turned back to shore.

The road and the lake won't be open for long. The sky dawned pink today, a reminder that we have a snowstorm coming tomorrow. Nothing like the snows that have hit upstate New York. Sandra's cousin reports that they'd received more than 100 inches of snow in her town on the shore of Lake Ontario. We're looking at 8-10. We'll work at home tomorrow.

Happy 17th Birthday, Michael Francis.

In photos and memories

Recently, while cleaning out my father's house, we found some pictures of Don and Huck. They were building a frame to which we'd attach the floating dock. They did good work together and had a lot of fun. Don reminded me that I should collect as many stories from my father as I could.

What's it been now, three years, since Don left us? Most of the time, we don't count the days. We just remember him, day after day.

NJ.com: NewsFlash - For AC lady, luck be a baby; gambler gives birth on casino floor

NJ.com: NewsFlash - For AC lady, luck be a baby; gambler gives birth on casino floor

There's been quite a bit of discussion in Massachusetts regarding the prospect of opening casinos in various parts of the state. Our new governor, Deval Patrick, has indicated his willingness to consider proposals for gambling sites.

Now, I know that it's not a good idea to legislate based on anecdotes, but I can't ignore this one. Casinos, IMO, are a bad idea. I don't hold the Lottery in high regard either, nor any other form of state-sponsored gambling. It's probably the most regressive form of taxation we have. That Lottery revenues provide a steady stream of money to our school systems shows to me that our state and local governments are too cowardly to develop an honest tax system. Perhaps we should go even further, such as putting up whorehouses on the Mass Pike.

Lest we forget, this is a blog about work

I'm returning to work today, half-time, four hours a day, five days a week. After a month or so, I'll meet with my managers to determine how close I am to resuming full-time work.

Am I anxious? You betcha. For one thing, the technology that we're developing is complex and changes rapidly; that's how the group manages to stay successful. The team is working on new products for new customers, in addition to maintaining the previous stuff. The work is hard, even on good days.

Even more, um, interesting, I'll have to deal with the mess I left behind. Being sick explains, but doesn't excuse, unsatisfactory work. It'll be a while before folks can trust that I can deliver good work on time; it'll be a while before I believe that about myself. So, I'll show up and accept responsibility for what went on before, try my best to fix the things I can, and try my best to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

Even though I might be scared, I can tell myself what I've told myself many times before - hard times always have something interesting to teach me.

Humming 'Joshua Gone Barbados'

We note with sadness that Eric von Schmidt died Saturday at age 75. He was a key figure in the folk music world of the 1960s. I went to college with his ex-wife and learned how to think about the people who wrote and sang those now familiar tunes as ordinary people with extraordinary talents.

On cold days, the sun still shines

It wasn't that long ago that the phone company was the domestic bureaucracy that inspired the greatest terror. Lily Tomlin and Elaine May developed and performed brilliant characters based on the stereotypical telephone operator. "We're the phone company--we don't have to care." So, when I called to cancel the phone service at my father's house, I delighted with the empathy and efficiency of the Verizon customer service representative. The line would be disconnected within a couple of hours and there'd be no charges for that portion of the month that he was, for a pretty compelling reason, unable to use the phone.

There is a little-understood principle called the Law of Conservation of Malevolence. If one company gets a clue and starts to treat its customers well, then, at least one other company must inherit the former's astringency. On this occasion, it went to the cable company: Comcast. A couple of years ago, I bought cable service for my father so that he could watch the ball games. The bills came to me; my social security number was on the account; all the Comcast promotional material came to me. So, when I called to cancel the service, the CSR told me that I needed to bring a copy of the death certificate to the nearest Comcast office, proving that my father was indeed dead so that I could stop the service that I had purchased.

CNN mentioned this site - Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing - earlier this week. The podcasts (audio programs) are four or five minutes long and provide good guidance for writing and speaking well. This week's program covers the use of bad vs. badly. ("I feel bad." and "I feel badly.")

We're receiving our first real cold blast of the season. At this writing, the temperature is -2°F. With a northwesterly breeze, the wind child makes it feel as cold as a Comcast CSR's heart.

Sometimes, the odometer click is louder than usual. Happy 40^th birthday, Mike. As we've said often, you and your family are giving our name a good name.

Finally, because of the turbulence surrounding my father's last days, I didn't get a chance to mention Krista's 11^th birthday, two weeks ago today. I'm glad that she had a happy day.

Cooper's tracks

We've had a touch of light snow during the past few days, enough to barely cover the ground. In places where last week's ice is still around, it's very slippery underfoot. In the fresh snow, footprints show up nicely.

The dog from across the street, Cooper, had been visiting my father's house. My father would save scraps of food and feed the dog from the back door. Cooper was tentative the first time I opened the back door to offer him a treat; he took the snack and backed away quickly. Now, we have several sets of Cooper's footprints circling the house. No one was home. Even if there had been someone at home, there's nothing left to eat.

---

It was easy to stop the newspaper delivery, cancel the telephone service, and have my father's mail forwarded to my home. The cable company (Comcast), however, wins the trophy for Insensitive Business Practices. Even though all of the cable bills had been coming to me for the years that we had cable at my father's house and my SSN was on the account, I had to bring a death certificate to the Comcast office in Leominster to prove that he was dead so that I could stop the cable service that I was paying for.

Obit and Services

Thanks for all of your kind notes. I'll reply individually soon.

You can find my father's obituary and information about the services at the Smith Funeral Home web site: http://www.gardnerfuneral.com/

Over the horizon

On Monday, 15 January, my father passed away in his sleep, by the fire in the wood stove in his living room. Huck was 93. An ice storm had come through on Monday, leaving us without power for 12 hours. What work we had to do, we did by the light of flashlights, candles, and kerosene lamp.

He left as he lived. His last meal was a half cup of coffee and bit of Finnish coffee bread, kahvi leipa, that Adam had made. His family and friends came to visit and to share stories of a remarkable life.

Huck loved sailing and sailed until he was 90. If you're clever, and he was, you can use the strength of the wind to go where you want to go. Many times, when we were sure that there was no wind at all, he kept the boat moving and made it safely to shore.

And so it was, when it was dark and quiet, he sailed on home.

How to stop a conversation

Some 15 years ago Sandra and I attended a holiday party sponsored by her company's division. She managed a system administration and software development team of 10 people or so. A woman who worked for Sandra, along with the woman's husband, joined us at dinner table. The conversation meandered, I'm not sure how it was that Sandra and I learned how the husband in this couple wore fishnet underwear. Who knows what bit of life-saving knowledge has been blocked from my memory because I have the image of this guy, wearing fishnets, in my beleaguered brain?

The first of December was covered with nothing much

It's above 60 now. A cold front is coming in later today and we may have snow by Monday.

The high school in my father's town has a program to give students extra credits if they help the elderly. My father turned down an offer to have a few teens shovel snow around his house. He didn't think that they'd be able to keep up and would wind up hitting each other with the shovels. So, when the snow comes, he'll be out there with the Jeep and then the snow blower.

Happy 93^rd Birthday, Huck.

Clear sound and foggy bottoms

Marley and I went for a walk this morning. Our preferred path is along the fire trails that run through a large tract of undeveloped land nearby. Today, however, the grounds crews were on the trails, clearing away fallen trees and branches. We kept our distance and Marley was on the leash for most of the walk.

We knew that the crews were in the woods because sound travels so much further these days. The leaves are down and there's no snow yet. The chain saws and ATVs traded solos with the ducks in the pond and the down-shifting trucks on Main Street. It'll be quiet again soon and we'd gladly trade a bit clatter for a 60-degree day so late in the season.

There was a sign in the van that took Sandra and me from Reagan Airport to the hotel:

Its (sic) state law:
No Smoking
Fasten Seat Belts

Ever the dreamers. Washington, D.C. isn't a state or even in a state. [Insert your own joke here.]

We stayed at a nice hotel a few blocks from the White House and were delighted to discover products from niece Lori's company in our bathroom. Now, I'm more of a soap kind of guy when I wash my hair, but the mint and thyme wash smelled nice and was soothing outside and inside my head.

We had our Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat at the restaurant where we had lunch after my mother's funeral service. Good humor prevailed in the crowded restaurant. We had good seats and a good meal. (You don't find many classy restaurants that serve liver and bacon.)

It's not surprising that Washington is a richly multi-cultural city, particularly on Thanksgiving weekend. You have all kinds of people who can't or don't want to go back home: foreign students, diplomats, spies, trembling Republicans. There are the firm and the infirm. There are those, too, for whom D.C. is home. So an Escalade is parked next to an Astro van and somehow, as with our democracy, it all works.

After dinner we went for a walk and that's where some of my lug nuts started to rattle. Sandra had wanted to see the new World War II memorial and possibly the Martin Luther King memorial, both recent additions to the Washington Mall. I had no recollection of the plan, no idea even what the Washington Mall was, let alone where it was. Added to that, it was a foggy evening, although there was no doubt that I brought my own fog with me.

I knew that I'd have memory loss after the treatments, but I didn't expect that it would be like this. Not knowing something is troublesome enough, but not knowing that you don't know, well, you'd better hope that the person with you is loving and patient.

It was only after we'd walked a while toward the Washington Monument that I started to have a clue about what was happening and what it meant. We made our way to the WWII and Lincoln memorials and the Wall. We'll visit MLK on another trip.

On Friday morning, the air clear and fresh, we set out to Arlington National Cemetery via the city's delightful public transit system, the Metro. We kept calling it the T and by day's end worked our way to calling it the M. The cars are clean and comfortable; there's plenty of good information about what's where. We made it across (under) the river and into Virginia easily.

The cemetery, sadly, is huge with room for more. It's a mile walk from the visitor's center to the columbarium where Linc and my mother rest. (A columbarium is also know as a dovecote, where doves are kept.) The walk is full of reverence and history. Some came here young, some old soldiers, some old pacifists, all trying, in their own ways, to keep us free.

My wits were good enough to get our airplane reservations changed to an earlier flight on Saturday, but we had an, um, interesting time because I couldn't connect the dots in my mind to find a clear path home. Fortunately, Rhode Island politicians worked the system well, so that there were plenty of ways to get from there to here.

Frost, still, at 11 in the morning

The shadows around the house are long, even at mid-day. We had a cold, clear night last night and the frost stayed on the back deck and yard until late morning.

I'm wrung out today. I haven't had good sleep for a couple of nights. I had my third treatment yesterday morning and am waiting for a call to schedule my fourth. (Note the paragraph ahead regarding the phone technician.) Frankly, my family has noticed more improvement than I have. When I listen to myself, I can't always make much sense of the words or ideas.

My insurance company informed me today that my short-term leave is done and that I'm being switched over to long-term. Mostly, it means more paperwork for my doctors and me. I don't mind the paperwork, but the extra forms take time away from my doctors, who should have that time to practice medicine.

This is a day at home. Marley and I did walk to a local garage where they'd done some routine maintenance on Sandra's car. (Lucky her. She gets to drive my car with the loose wires and rattles and bumps and the odd aggolmeration of audio gear and parts.) We've reached the time when I need to either look for a new car or spend a chunk of change on maintenance and repair. Those decisions aren't easy in the best of times. These, we know aren't the best of times for my decision-making.

Today we have a Verizon technician making some changes to our phone lines. We used be very afraid when we saw a phone company truck in the neighborhood because we were sure something was going to go wrong. The technician just walked through the room, muttering something about "unauthorized service." "I'll get you going again," he said.

Sandra and I are going on a quick trip to Washington D.C. at the Old Ebbit Grill We'll visit Arlington National Cemetery, where my mother and Linc are inurned. We haven't been there since my mother's funeral. We'll have a coffee at the Smithsonian and also have a meal at the Old Ebbit Grill, where we had lunch after the funerals.

Thinking of the season. As tough as these months have been, I have much for which to be grateful.

You Are 92% Thankful

You're an incredibly thankful person, and everyone around you feels very appreciated. You inspire people to be more optimistic, forgiving, and grateful.

How Thankful Are You?

Mmm, hospital coffee

The people in the hospital were very nice, anticipating aspects of the procedure that might uncomfortable, scary, confusing. Hospitals can be an unsettling place because, I think, the people who work there see the same things each day, while folks from the outside are there for something that is new and strange.

Sandra and I arrived shortly before 6:30. On Tuesday I'd received two phone calls from the hospital, one telling me to report to a room on the 3^rd floor, the other to the 2^nd. We arrived at the room on the 3^rd where we were directed to the 2^nd. Now we know.

The procedure itself was a swirl of activity and lights until it was lights out for me. It all felt like it went quickly, but it was a few hours before I was back in my room (which didn't look familiar at all), some time after 10:00. I declined the offer of breakfast, but did have a cup of coffee.

My only discomfort is a sore jaw because I was clenching my teeth so hard. A couple of Tylenol^® takes care of that. There's some goop left over in my hair, a conductivity gel.

Sandra brought me home by noon. (I think. I'm having difficulty with time and dates. I keep thinking that today is Monday and, on this cloudy day, I can't guess the time; I have to check a clock.)

In all, I feel ok, tired, but ok.

It's easy to find positive thoughts when you know where to look

Tomorrow morning I'll start a series of ECT treatments. It's an out-patient procedure, two to three times a week. They tell me that it won't hurt and I believe them. They say that there might some temporary memory loss and I'll say, of course, "What memory loss?"

Today I've had two calls from the hospital, telling me to report at two different offices and at different times. The doctors are still trying to locate the lab results of the tests that I had last Friday. My definition of bad bureaucracy is that climate in the workplace that causes good, well-intentioned, smart people to do bad or stupid things.

I was told a long time ago about the power of a gratitude list. At its most simple, it's a list of the people and fortunes which I'm grateful. Even on my worst days, I can easily fill a page. I have many blessing, near and far.

In the meantime, the world out there goes along its mega-goofy ways:

• Britney Spears kicked her husband to the curb by way of a Blackberry text message.
• One can get a technical writing job working in on Asset-Forfeiture and Money-Laundering projects.
  
• OK, bring in the violins: a Hell's Angel is feeling bad because the Angels have been ruled a criminal organization (organisation?) in Canada.
• A Wisconsin legislator has a novel idea to protect students against armed assaults - arm the teachers. A high-school physics teacher of mine used to throw chalk at the wiseguys sleeping in the back of the room. How much more interesting would it be if he carried a 9mm?

I'll write as best as I can during the coming weeks.

The low, gray clouds of November

A quick way to retrieve your current weather conditions and forecast is to type this into your browser's address bar: http://weather.gov/01331, where 01331 is your ZIP code. (via lifehacker). Of course, what you'll find around here at this time in mid-New England won't be very interesting.

We've had rain followed by showers followed by rain again, this for several days and for several days more. The skies may be the color of wet dustballs, but there are fine points of celebration and thanksgiving.

Happy 64^th Anniversary, Marian and Woody, including nearly 25 years as housemates. Life's pretty good, y'know.

Regional report

The news from the Pioneer Plastic City is grim. The company that originally manufactured the plastic pink flamingo is going out of business. We have a couple of the birds in our cellar, mementos of a sillier time. It's disappointing, indeed, when the arts cannot thrive

What was once one of Gardner's magnificent furniture factories, Gem Crib and Cradle, now houses chain pharmacies. Joe Lieberman even gave tribute to Gardner's industries. (His statements are totally unrelated to the fact that his wife grew up in Gardner.)

I worked at Gem Crib for a short time in the 60s. I was pretty much an idiot then, highlighted by walking off a loading dock. I caught back of my thigh on a piece of metal on the edge of the dock. I quit that job before I got fired. I started my restaurant career at a (now gone, too) small burger and ice cream shop down the road about five miles.

Across the street from Gem Crib is a gasoline station. It had been a Getty station with the cheapest prices in town. Now the station is a part of the LUKOIL chain. As a child of the Cold War, having a Russian business in our midst creeps me out. I'll get over it, though. It wasn't that long after WWII that we were driving Volkswagens.

I answered a call from Sandra's cousin, Jeanette, who lives in upstate New York. She asked if it was snowing here; it had just started where she lives. Although the temperature dipped to the mid-20s this morning, the sky is clear and we can see for miles.

Happy 2^nd Birthday, Cassie.

What's ahead?

What's ahead? A head? Heh-heh. *snork*

This interview (WFCR audio) describes the increasing effectiveness and popularity of an old procedure.

Letting the reporters do their jobs

I haven't spent a lot of time describing the symptoms. Writing is very difficult and the words come out tumbled and flat, like bugs on the windshield.

Chris Rose, a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, has written a nifty piece about depression, the impact on himself and on his family and friends. Dooce adds some good commentary around Chris's story.

More later. Thanks for your patience.

...the frost perched on the town...

We have a small pond less than a quarter of mile down the hill from our house. Ducks, for the most part, stay the winter, but geese are only passing through.

To my ears, there's no better song to guide us to winter than Joni Mitchell's Urge for Going, which I first heard on Tom Rush's LP The Circle Game. Each autumn since the song's 1968 release, I recall the lyric, "See the geese in chevron flight ..."

Our race for state representative has produced an odd effect: signs for both the Democratic and Republican candidates in the same yard. There are several possible explanations, none of them making great sense.

In the race for governor, we step into the land of "I Don't Get It." Republican Kerry Healey, our current Lt. Governor, is comparing herself to Bill Clinton, arguing that, even though Clinton has campaigned for Democrat Deval Patrick, her policies are more like Clinton's than Patrick''s are.

Up in PEI, an Olympic gold medalist is upset that a street named after him uses just his nickname, rather than his full name with nickname in the middle.

The Smithsonian Global Sound has released an album of of polkas drawn several regional traditions. Among the songs are Karl's Bad Schottische. When I was growing up, we had a 78rpm of the Finnish song, Maailman Matti (Matti, Man of the World). I had no idea what the song was about, but it was a familiar and comforting tune.

Happy 15^th Birthday, Matt.

Stop or I'll say, "Stop!" again.

During the 50s and early 60s it seemed as though bombs were dropping everywhere. Some saw these bombs as a source of defensive strength and national pride. Others, particularly kids such as me, went to bed scared most nights. We were afraid of the images of the mushroom clouds and learned about Strontium-90 in our milk.
The frightened children of the world can now take comfort that the United States wants an official U.N. response to North Korea's nuclear test within a week of the explosion. A week is a bit too fast for China, but everyone on the Security Council agrees that the whole world should glare at North Korea.

Not only did we have war and rumors of war in the 50s, we had real, honest-to-goodness Friday the 13ths. Walt Kelly, through the Pogo comic strip, taught us how to avoid the perils of this day.

In addition to Kelly, Herb Block (Herblock) drew cartoons that were sad or frightening or barbed (all at the same time). Herblock's portfolio includes material about war, nuclear arms race, McCarthyism, civil rights, and corporate culture.

Even as each writer covered the same topics, they did so with unique styles. Kelly developed characters lyrically while Herblock tossed javelins at the tips of pointy-headed officials.

I miss them both. Fortunately, I have a number of Pogo books that remain fresh more than 50 years after the strips were published.

Meanwhile, our president is reporting on the nation's finances. "These budget numbers are not just estimates; these are the actual results for the fiscal year that ended February the 30th."

Football notes, by way of the Holden Landmark:

• "We spread the ball a little bit and had people like Mike Hakkarainen, Andrew Tokarz and Burt Grinstead running it.
  "Wachusett's 3-2 JVs knocked off Westboro, 24-0, earlier this week. The TDs were scored by Justin Stevens, Kellon Haynes and Mike Hakkarainen.
• "The Mountaineer freshmen remained undefeated, downing Westboro, 32-19, earlier this week. Gary White, Matt Hakkarainen and Matt Pedone had the TDs."
• "Joe Hakkarainen and Ryan Getchell ran the ball well...

Word pieces

The purpose of writing is to take ideas and observations and make them into words, sentences, and paragraphs which can then be shared. Writing for me, these days, has lots of pieces and parts on the table while, at the same time, revealing gaps in the sentences and paragraphs, as though I was writing through a torn curtain.

This past weekend, Sears had an advertising flyer that included special price for t-shirts. One, though, had me puzzled. "Will play for mushrooms" seems a bit too psychedelic for a multimillion dollar retail clothing business. Apparently, however, the phrase now refers to some goings-on a Super Mario Bros. video game. I became uncool regarding music in the mid-80s; I know so because a the 14-year-old son of a friend told me so. We last played video games in the Pac-man/Space Invaders, leaving a quarter-century to soak myself in unsolicited.

Ever since he moved from Pennsylvania to South Florida, columnist Dave Barry has claimed, with some reason, that Florida drivers are only slightly better drivers than are manatees. While Massachusetts drivers yield to no one, the Sunshine State is making a run at the title of Grand Wazoo of Bad Drivers. It is a collaboration between individuals and government to crank up the looniness. This month, for example, the AAA newsletter includes a section on the, um, adventures of driving in Florida. One person, a transplant from Rhode Island, observed a car crash at a particular intersection and called the local city office to request a stop sign for the intersection. They don't stop anyway, said that city official, so why waste the money?

Lots of folks have recommended exercise as a way to raise my spirits and energy levels. Marley and I walk most days, sometimes for a hour in the nearby woods, sometimes for 20 minutes to the corner pharmacy. The trip through the woods is best for the both of us - it's a longer trip for me and a chance for him to run freely.

Another recommendation, borne out in my own experience, is finding things that bring laughter.We cana always rely on Massachusetts politicians for a short bit of silliness. See Christy Mihos's The Big Dig, Explained.

The day is fine and the boat is resting on dry land

In a small town near to the (even smaller) town where Adam, Jenny, and Lily live, they have a two-fer store. The store is not onlly a hardware story, but also a pharmacy. You can pick up drill bits with your Drixoral.

We've had a stretch of beautiful fall weather. Yesterday, Adam and Jennie removed our boat from the water and brought it to a marina near their home. The folks at the marina will winterize, shrink-wrap, and store the boat for the winter.

The daytime temperatures have been pleasant. Nights are long and cool. We have a thermometer (not one of these) that lets us measure the water temp. A number of 70 or 55 or whatever isn't much help, however. The relative water temperature is set on a scale of:

Nice
Refreshing
Cool
Cold
Mighty cold
Ice
Too much ice for sauna

Happy 7^th Birthday, Lily.

Free skunk, just in time for the holidays

About 8:00 the other morning, I saw a skunk shuffling across our back deck. The skunk, a large one and probably a female, went to the edge of the deck, onto the ground, and back under the desk. Fortunately, Marley, Sandra, and I were inside and inside we stayed. We've cleaned skunk spray from two dogs two times each; that's been plenty.

We researched a few ideas to help us remove the skunk. Trapping was often mentioned, but I can't see how that can be a good idea. We have a Havahart^® trap. So, then, we catch the skunk in a cage. How is that any better than a skunk under the deck?

Our next idea came from the Sunday newspaper. We have closed all but a small part of the end of the deck and put ammonia-soaked rags at the exit/entrance point. The idea is that the skunk will go out because it needs to find food, but won't come back because of the ammonia smell. We put flour at the entrance to see if we could see footprints. So far, the flour is smooth and the air is fresh.

On the other side of the galaxy, meanwhile, people have gathered in Ohio in support of skunks.

[My father had a pet skunk during the early days of the camp, but that's a story for another day.]

With the spinach scare continuing, we now know the revealed wisdom of the past.

Harriet Carter's magazines are classics in the genre of "Boss, how about if we selling these?" and the boss says, "Good idea." For example, wouldn't it be nice to snuggle under a giant kitten head. And, if you want to let your cat outside, but not really, here's a cat tunnel.

In Boston, baseball is serious stuff, almost as serious as political posturing. A Boston city councillor wants to take down the Citgo sign that shines like a gentle moon over Fenway park. In a speech to the United Nations, Hugo Chavez, president and looney without portfolio, referred to George W. Bush as the devil. Citgo is owned by the Venezualan national oil company. So, Councilor Jerry McDermott said that the Citgo sign must come down. The war on terrorism and evilness begins at home.

When the spirit is low, humor is a great comforter. There's no more reliable source of humor than the Looney Tunes cartoons of old, particularly those produced by Chuck Jones. Here's one such cartoon.

Peach clouds in the western skies

The air is changing from mild to cool with unthreatening clouds tumbling in from the north and west. As the air clears, the colors of red and orange and yellow and purple and green are all the more vivid.

Our friend, Connie, long-time laborer for peace, has returned from the hospital with new vigor for healing herself physically and, most importantly, spiritually. Connie has cheered on family, friend, and Friends, including my mother, for a long time.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again.

- Sojourner Truth

Connie's experience shows that we can start the journey anew, whenever we're so inspired.

What to think about when what's in front of us doesn't make sense.

In the 50s TV show, The Millionaire, the protagonist, Michael Anthony, gave away a million bucks in each episode. It was a dramatic show, but one with a wink to the audience. In one scene, the week's nemesis says to Anthony that he never trusted anyone with two first names.

If a bad guy dislikes you for what you are, then, in my opinion, you're on the right track. The Massachusetts Democrats have four first names at the top of this year's ballot - Deval Patrick for governor and Wistah's own Tim Murray for lieutenant governor.

I was on hold on Tuesday while calling the insurance company that is handling my disability claim on Tuesday. The phone system offered an instrumental version of Handbags and Gladrags. Mike D'Abo wrote the song in the 60s and Rod Stewart recorded it in 1969. A few years ago, it became the theme song of the UK version of The Office. I thought of the song often while the customer-service representative was telling me that unless my doctor sends a form with updated medical information about me by Monday, my benefits will be cut off. My doctor is on vacation and won't return until Monday.

Please accept my deep gratitude for the gestures of comfort, kindness, and encouragement during these unbalanced times. I owe many personal responses and I will reply soon, for sure.

And now for something completely different, My brain hurts. (You'll need sound on your compute and a somewhat fast network connection.)

The light stays on, even in the darkness

The sun rises around 6:30 in the morning, In a balanced world, the sun would rise at 6AM on the equinox and set at 6PM; the equinox is on Saturday morning. We have time zones, though, that shift the actual sunrise and sunset by a few minutes. In addition, the sunlight is refracted by the atmosphere, so the sunlight is visible a few minutes before the sun breaks the horizon and a few minutes after the sun sets.

By all of this, I mean to say that it's still dark when I go out to the driveway to get the morning papers. I'm still in the habit of glancing up to the window in the room that was my mother's. She would wake during the night, for several hours at a time. She used that time for reading and, most of all, writing.

The room has been dark in the mornings since, but we can still see the light as we continue to celebrate what she said and wrote and was.

RIP, TJL.

G'bye, Joan

Lynn's mother, Joan, passed away earlier this afternoon. She was a sweet woman, eager to share her love, good humor, and faith. She was admitted to the hospital on Saturday with serious breathing difficulties. In just a few days, it was time for her to cross the river. Her five children, 18 grandchildren, and various in-laws and friends will stay on this shore. She drew strength from big family gatherings, so we'll have a big party to energize her for the journey.

We know the when. Here's the who, what, and where.

One of the engineers in our group sent an email at about 9:20, informing us that a plane had crashed into one of the towers in the World Trade Center. We assumed that it was a small plane that had strayed off course. We thought that for a while until word came around that a second plane had hit the other tower. We then learned that the planes were big machines - Boeing 767s. In the next hours, we learned more about the other plane crashes, the buildings and people affected, and, of course, My Pet Goat.

People in the office started asking the managers what they should or could do. A few of the managers met in my office where we held a speaker-phone call with the vice president of human resources. We asked if he or the executive management had any advice for us. He said that he would be sending a message to the company by noon. While waiting for his message, I sent email to the people on my team, telling them that they should be where they needed to be and that each person should give a hug to someone they loved.

By early afternoon, most people, including yours truly, had gone home.

Doug Gowell, a product manager from a former company, was on United Flight 175.

Work, interrupted

Simply put, I've been too sick for too long. After conversations with Sandra, with one doctor, and with another, I went on disability leave on Tuesday. Depression, it is, although I didn't use the word often. I told my manager and the one co-worker who'd be most affected by my absence. I'm not sure how long it will take for me to be well enough to be able to return to work, but it's likely to be months rather than weeks.

Sandra and the rest of my family have been wonderfully supportive. My manager and the co-worker were very encouraging. I'm also sure that people are more than a bit afraid, in part of the work that I won't be able to do and in part because the d-word is scary.

The company's policies regarding the treatment of depression and related illness are quite good, but it's still a big company.

• The envelope that brought me the paperwork had a statement on the back that said "Extremely Urgent." The words UPS Express, however, were redacted and replaced with UPS Ground. Urgent, but don't hurry.
• When I called the agency that provides services for behavioral health matters, I had to provide my doctor's name to determine if he is included in the insurance plan. (He is.) To confirm the doctor's address, the very nice person on the other end of the phone said, "Wuh, Wuh, Worchester."

So, here we go on another adventure of healing.

Of trees and music and meat and, oh, yes, work

The National Weather Service determined that Wednesday's storm was a derecho. The Worcester Telegram quoted Glenn A. Field of the NWS, "A derecho is a widespread 'family of downburst clusters' that is part of a very fast-moving, long-lived windstorm. " Derecho is a Spanish word that means "Full Employment for Anyone with A Chain Saw."

Sandra bought a chain saw on Friday. She didn't get to bring it home; almost all chain saws dealers are out of stock. Hers is on order. It has push-button assist so that it's easier to start.

That other sound you hear comes from the work deadlines whooshing past. I received an email yesterday afternoon from one of the engineers on my current project. I learned that we're not delivering 12 separate products, but one solution with 12 features. Instead of 12 books due by Wednesday, I now have one big book. In many ways, that's much better. I'd prepared for that possibility from the start.

We stopped by my father's house yesterday. On Saturday he mentioned that he'd bought a new wireless door bell, but he couldn't test how it sounded because no one was around to ring the doorbell. One friend was in Michigan, visiting family. Another two no longer drive because of health reasons. And the rest, well, you know. So, we rang the bell. It worked fine, although might not be quite loud enough if the TV is also loud.

Dr. John, aka Mac Rebennack, showed up on the music shuffle this morning. I first heard the Dr. John in the 60s when some guys at college returned from L.A. with his Gris-Gris album. The album is rich, dark, and tangled, like the backwoods of Louisiana. He's had some commercial successes and has emerged as one of the sustainers of New Orleans music, along with the Marsalis and Neville family.

Dr. John also, as certain angles, looks like our friend, Don. Enough so that when I hear the good doctor, I remember Don, even though I don't remember Don playing New Orleans or cajun music. Memories make the connections that they want to make.

Another bit from those smoke-filled years. On one of the classic rock channels, I recently heard "The Wind," by Circus Maximus. A check on the web shows that Jerry Jeff Walker played with CM. Didn't know and can hardly imagine that. "The Wind" was one of those long songs, a bit more than eight minutes, that DJs would put on the turntable when they needed to get away from the studio for a bit.

Arthur Lee, of the 60s California band, Love, recently died of leukemia. He was 61. He had a great voice, intriguing, haunting, supported by good material played by a good band. The band never achieved big commercial success, just deep respect from a dedicated group of listeners.

Vegetarians can enjoy a chuckle while we puzzle about meat.

• It used to be that you could get spaghetti sauce that had meat in it. Rarely did they advertise what type of meat it was, but it was meat. Now, the sauces are "meat-flavored." Again, we've no clue about the type of meat. We are left to imagine a cow or a pig or a raccoon walking through a vat of marinara to give it that meal flavor.
  


• A friend has returned east from Washington state. He reports that, unless you bribe the kitchen staff, you can't get a restaurant to serve you a steak that's medium rare or rare. The state has decided that under-cooked meat is a terrorist threat.
  So, rather than gnawing on that piece of e-coli-free shoe leather the next time you're in Seattle, you might want to have the sushi instead. (BTW, here's a video clip with the real story behind sushi in America.)
  

"I'm going to miss worship services this morning, honey. Our men's group is having our scripture readings outdoors today."

A new way to pick apples

A severe thunderstorm bullied its way through our area yesterday afternoon. When Sandra got home from work, the driveway was blocked by some good-sized branches from the maple tree. She found Marley cowering in our bedroom upstairs. In the backyard, she found that two apples trees had been uprooted. The storm also broke a peach tree and sent it into the dog pen.

In Worcester, many roads were blocked because of downed trees and power lines. A couple of the trees looked scorched, as though they'd been hit by lightning. As far as I know, there were no injuries.

The storm followed the first-ever excessive heat warning for this area, around 100F with maybe 95% humidity. "If you listen to the TV," said Huck, "we should all be dead." As tough as work has been, I'm grateful that I work in an air-conditioned space, unlike those who have to do things such as roofing or working on road construction details.

We don't get many severe thunderstorms, but it's good to pay attention when bad weather is around. I get weather warnings sent to my cell phone and will check the radio while driving. That venerable Boston station - WBZ - is the place to go. Since they remade themselves into an all-news format during the day (with talk shows in the night), they're a pretty reliable source for local news and weather. They offer a weather report every 10 minutes and, three minutes later, a traffic check. Their traffic reports rarely cover anything on I-495 or west, but sometimes something big happens. The weather reports come from Accuweather, based in State College PA. With good radar and satellite information, along with National Weather Service feeds, you'd hardly know that they weren't looking out a window on Storrow Drive.

Until last Friday. The forecaster was getting the detail of the weather, including the march of severe thunderstorms eastward. But he kept referring to the storms in "Worchester County". Everyone knows that the city and county names are pronounced Wusta.

RIP, Cosmic Muffin

One last item, from the There Will Always Be An England Dept.: Bog Snorkeling

Child's-eye view of project management

Every time I go to Wal-Mart, I hear the voices of my friends who play the role as my liberal conscience. I know that they make their own economic weather, that their workers at home and abroad receive low wages and depressed benefits. The aisles in the stores are too narrow and they have too few people staffing the registers. (Sam's Club is even worse.)

So, why do I go there? There are two:

1. Convenience. I can get what I need in one place at a time when I can do my shopping. Sunday I bought a circuit tester, peanut butter, and cough syrup. Wal-Mart even has a sense of humor. They had a display for Advil at the end of the toy aisle.
   
   Spag's was great in its day, but they weren't open on Sundays until quite late in their reign.
   
   
2. Anthropology. The people who shop and work there are fascinating. Just one brief story - A young couple was shopping with their toddler. The toddler was screaming as though his favorite toy was being carried away by wolves. The couple , meanwhile, was trying to decide which condoms to buy.

Another week crawling toward a deadline that keeps moving and morphing. Friday afternoon I learned that the sales manager for the account agreed that I didn't have to deliver my 12 books by 5PM that day, but I would have until Wednesday. Oh, but instead of 12 books, it's now 13.

Concluding a month of good fortune, I learned that my car needed some important (and expensive) repairs. The service manager called me in the afternoon to tell me that I need repairs on one thing for $260, replacement of another for $280, and yet another for $380. My tires need replacing before winter and my windshield wipers were gone. I thanked him while doing the mental calculations.

"There's more," he said. The electronics associated with the vehicle dynamics control needed replacement. "About $1100." They did some work and we postponed the rest until next week or the week after.

I like my car very much. It's fun to drive, on-road and kind-of-off. I also like the fact that it has a few dings and scrapes, that the back of the car has dog hair on the carpet and nose prints on the window. It has 135,000 miles on it now and has a good chance of going past 200K. Or, maybe not. These expenses could be the first stones that presage a landslide.

When I can, I am picking the routes that have the least amount of tree cover. Satellite radio requires a good view of the sky. The leaves on the trees can shield the signal. I bought the radio in November, when foliage wasn't an issue. On my trips to New York now, I'm more apt to chose I-84 instead of the Wilbur Cross/Merritt Parkway, because of the trees. One route from home to the camp has worse roads, but more sky.

There are times, however, when you want to park your car under a tree, in a garage, with a metal roof. Michael Bolton will be playing his favorites on the SIRIUS love channel this Thursday.

A bunch of years ago, the VP of engineering at our small company chastised me for using the phrase "tar baby" to describe a particularly bothersome project. He believed that it was a racist slur which, indeed, it has become. I was using it in the context of a child watching Song of the South on TV in the 50s. It was, to me, a white kid in an all-white rural community in central New England, a charming tale of wit defeating guile, in the same vein as Bugs Bunny vs. Elmer Fudd or Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote. The tar baby, in my view, was black because tar was black. Sure, there are legitimate reasons for criticizing the movie for being naively racist, but I don't think that such criticism applies to the goings-on in the briar patch. Nevertheless, "tar baby" probably deserves to be retired from our lexicon. For example, see what happens when our governor uses the phrase "tar baby" to describe the Big Dig.

Home and that's good

The ride back from New York was interesting as I watched Connecticut drivers practicing moves from the good folks of Massachusetts. Yesterday, for example, they gave their turn signals the day off. Then, there was the motorcyclist who did a two-fer: not only did he drive in the breakdown lane at 80 while the rest of the traffic was doing 60, he also drove solo on the Diamond Lane, reserved for vehicles with two or more passengers.

Which reminds me. Last Sunday Sandra and I stopped at The Country Store in Petersham. The store is owned and operated by the Polus Center. It has a fine deli for sandwiches and ice cream, basic groceries, and lots of gifts, most hand-crafted. When we go in, we pass a bunch of motorcycles and folks wearing leather. They weren't, however, bikers in the common use of the word. They didn't have tattoos. They appeared to have all of their teeth.

In the store, one guy took off his jacket. Now, I'm not a fashion prude, at least not too much. Some things, nevertheless, are just wrong. A guy with the demeanor of an insurance salesman shouldn't be wearing a t-shirt that says, "Bad to the bone." It's like the Monty Python sketch where Michael Palin plays a chartered accountant who figures that he's ready make a career change to lion taming because he has a hat. "A hat with 'lion tamer' on it. I got it at Harrods."

So, I'm home, soon to be at work. We're looking at possible in the rear view mirror as we move through the stunning amount of work that needs to be done by tomorrow at 5. We'll deliver something, for varying values of something.

But, I'm home and that's good.

Happy Birthday, Sandra. The world joins in the celebration.

View from the 13th floor

Well, it could be the 13th or even the 14th. The first floor is one floor up from the lobby. And, the lower lobby, one floor down, lets you exit to the street in the back of the hotel. The hotel staff calls this the Executive Level. The rooms aren't anything special, but we get a free breakfast buffet. (There's also a free cocktail hour, lasting three hours. I don't have any business being there, so I don't go.)

Yesterday I was drawn into a discussion about the need to add one more book to my workload. We probably need to do it, but not by Friday, when I have nine books due. This afternoon I met with the lead engineer on the product and he mentioned that there were two more components, meaning two more books. By Friday. Oh, and, did I mention that the engineer will be taking a few days off, returning next Tuesday. And that the lead engineer on my other projects will be going to India for vacation for a few weeks.

Last week I worked about 65 hours. It won't be that much this week, more like 50. Others on the team, project managers, developers, testers, and writers, are doing about the same, if not more.

Underlying it all is a customer that is very demanding regarding the quality and quantity of the documentation. At one point, we were negotiating a five-week delay in the delivery of one of the products. The customer said, fine, but give us the documentation on the original date, five weeks before the software was done. Executives to the VP level are talking about documentation.

Normally, technical writers labor in the basement of the product development world, far away from the light and heat. We're often like the blind mules working the mines, rarely brought out to meet the people at the top of the mine. We'll meet this week's deadline as best we can and the next one and the next one after that, until we're done.

While driving here, I saw several of these Kia Amantis. They remind me of the Soviet ZIL.

Also while riding, I heard Elvis do a cover the Hoyt Axton tune "Never Been to Spain." Elvis was one of the greatest performers and interpreters of music. One of the the things that happened, though, once RCA got a hold on him and his music, the record company started over-producing and over-orchestrating each song, believing that the American listened wanted such mush. The orchestration fell wet sand on this nifty song. Elvis was a great gospel singer, but the same thing happened to his gospel music, wet sand of strings and choruses. Listen to his handling of gospel classics on the Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins) and you'll how deeply this music ran through his veins.

In the 70s the traffic circle in uptown Gardner was covered with Astro-turf (or some generic knock-off). It looked good for about a week. Then it got dirty and needed to be washed or vacuumed, for which the city had no budget. The artificial turf was replaced with asphalt after 20 years. These folks (via Joho the Blog) want to banish the stuff from the planet. Good luck. There will also be a place like Gardner that thinks that Astro-turf is a good idea.

Know anyone who needs one of these (via New Launches)? It's like a sneeze guard for your keyboard.

So, each person in Arizona who votes in the primary and/or general election will have a chance to win $1M. Central Pennsylvania blood banks will give ccoupons for free beer to people who donate blood. What's next? Nevada providing coupons to its voters for a free ticket to the Mustang Ranch or the new salon that Heidi Fleiss is opening?

My car is reaching the age that I find various spare parts on the floor. Nothing much yet under the car, but I need the radio to cover the various squeaks and groans of the suspension.

I have a nifty extension to my Firefox browser. It lets me see the time in a more sensible way. Instead of 9:45, it shows:

About cats and dogs

Why they miss us, each in their own way.

About drugs 'n stuff

Signs that I may be a bit too familiar with the world of prescription drugs:

• When you reach the age that almost everyone, even folks obviously older than me, call me "Sir," the pharmacy technical at the nearby drug store greets me by my first name when I go in for refills.
• I am reading a story in the Wall Street Journal about addiction transfer. (A significant number of people who have gastric bypass surgery go on to develop other addictions, such as compulsive gambling, alcoholism, or compulsive shopping.) The article mentions a couple of drugs that are been tested as possible treatments. The article includes a misspelling of one of the names (Bupropian, instead of Bupropion, aka Wellbutrin).
  

Elsewhere on health matters:

• Scientists believe that they have isolated the gene responsible for depression.
• I've been cleared of cancer for now and am supposed to be extra careful about exposure to the sun. In addition to SPF 10W40 and a hat the size of a trashcan lid, I guess one of these outfits would be a good idea.
• Finns don't want diseases named after them or their towns.
• Take a look at this site if you want to get an idea when you'll get your ticket punched.

Last Friday's entry was the 500th in this journal.