The weather forecasters are still calling for a big something on Monday and into Tuesday. New England will see a continuum of heavy rain along the south and southeast coasts changing to heavy snows inland. With systems such as these, there's no typical behavior to expect. Nor'easters behave in one way. Alberta Clippers behave in another. In this case, however, a change in either distance from the coast or even 100 feet in elevation can make a big difference in the amount of snow vs. rain.

News from north of the border is that Canada won't participate in the missile defense (defence) program. The U.S., in response, says, fine, we'll just shoot over your heads. The U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, is a sort of an acquaintance. We used to live in the same town when he was a state representative (like an MLA). I was a reporter and talked with him frequently. His father, who owned a local car dealership, was a real character and worked tirelessly on behalf of the town. Paul later went on to be state senator, lieutenant governor, governor, and then ambassador. This is probably my closest connection to the famous, although one time I did stand next to Elton John in the Boston Tower Records store.

As I've mentioned before, I often listen to the radio during the night. The local NPR station broadcasts the BBC World Service. The BBC's Washington correspondent, Rob Watson, is returning to England after many years of reporting from the States. Last week he wrote a piece, rebroadcast this morning, in which he shared his impressions of America and its people. He called it a love letter. It's reminiscent of Alistair Cooke's Letter from America series.

We have another month of development work for our current project. Already some people are looking ahead to the next project, due for release late in this year. I had a brief email exchange with my manager, indicating that I'd be willing to work on whatever he thinks would be useful. If there was a choice, however, I'd like to spend time developing some automation tools. There are a number of repetitive tasks that could be simplified. Funding for my position runs through the middle of May. There's talk that permanent positions may be opening up, but the company hasn't posted any official openings yet.

Just a few inches of snow fell overnight, barely enough for a plow. The weather forecasters are huddling around their charts and discussing the possibility of a big storm in the Northeast early next week. It's another of those complex scenarios that could bring us a major snowstorm or a garbled mess of snow, ice, rain, wind, fish, frogs, and other things falling from the sky.

Following up on yesterday's discussion regarding sources of energy for portable devices, we find that the clever folks at the Indian Institute of Technology have come up with a device that can charge a cell phone with wind power. It raises the question, of course, would the wind from a telephone conversation be sufficient to power the cell phone? It's not quite perpetual motion, but it's getting there.

Happy Birthday, Lynn.

Batteries fade over time, and not a long time at that. The battery on this laptop holds a charge for just under two hours; when new, it kept the laptop running for three-and-a-half hours. The iPod battery that rocked on for more than eight hours now just makes it to seven. Both are less than a year old. Freeplay, a South African company, has just gone public on the London Stock Exchange with a line of products that can charge batteries with wind-up and foot power. They also make a multi-source, multi-band radio.

I've been wearing glasses since I was five. The only time that I was without them for a extended time came as the result of a walk through the woods after dark. (It looked like a shortcut on the way in to the woods.) A stray branch knocked my glasses off and in the dark, thick underbrush, I couldn't find them. In those days, it took a week to get a pair of glasses, so I spent the time in a Mr. Magoo blur. If only I had these, I'd have been all set.

My father has a 1971 phone book on his kitchen counter. You never know when you'll need to look up the phone number that someone had nearly 35 years ago. That was two area codes ago for him. He's had the same phone number since the late 50s, back when telephone exchanges were in common use.

The eastern sky was bright red at sunrise. We're expecting more snow, although the Cape will get hit the hardest again.

It's rare for our house to be completely dark. The camp is dark, PEI darker still. We have a street light just outside our window. Inside the house, there are the lights left on intentionally, the electric candle in the window, an evolution of the Christmas lights, a light of hope, and the stove light on for the early risers. Then, there are the dots of light, from the printer, the power strip, the telephone answering machine, the VCR that we hope isn't flashing 12:00. And this morning we have the moon, the nearly full snow moon, brightening up the whitened countryside.

In his 1989 innaugural address, President George H. W. Bush used the "thousand points of light" as his expression of how the service spirit would manifest itself in the country. Added to his lexicon by speechwriter Peggy Noonan in the mid-80s, the phrase has been employed by many different people.

I know that, if it wasn't for Matt, I wouldn't have known to care that Blink-182 is going on indefinite hiatus. (Indefinite Hiatus, by the way, would be a good name for a rock band. ) Blink-182 was one of Matt's favorite bands. I haven't had a chance yet to talk with him about the news. I suspect that it's no big deal. He'd moved on already.

A friend has a three-year-old yellow Lab named Thompson. Thompson is an, um, dropout of assistance dog school. He's great in all settings except when another dog is around. Then he needs to be the alpha dog. That's not acceptable behavior for a dog who is leading someone across a street. With people he's wonderful. Our friend's partner takes Thompson to the library and to school, where children read to him. Children are much more at ease when they're reading to him than when they're reading to adults or to their peers. At the end of the day, Thompson comes home very tired. It's a lot of work to pay attention well.

I received a call from an employment agency yesterday. The job that we discussed wasn't a great one (more than an hour's drive for 2-6 month contract), but it's good to get unsolicted calls.

How great is this?! For the second time in a week, I've received email informing me that I've won the a lottery. This time, it's the Royal Spainish Lottery.

Not only do spammers use our email addresses to send us all of the junk that you see. They also spoof return addresses, sometimes using legitimate addresses, such as yours and mine. This morning, for example, I received a mail message stating that so-and-so would be out of the office this week, but that I could contact thus-and-such if I had any questions. I'd not sent anything to so-and-so and cetainly not anything regarding "We deliver satisfcation!"

Imagine what it would take to change our calendar system. George Washington was born on 11 February 1732, under the Julian calendar. When he was a young man, in 1752, England and its colonies switched to the more accurate Gregorian calendar. The discrepancy between the two calendars at that time was 11 days. So, his birthday became 22 February. For a similar reason, the October Revolution, when the Russians established a communist state, is observed in November. The February Revolution that overthrew the tsar took place in March. Russia didn't relinquish the use of the Julian calendar until 1918.

Each time I see the adverts for Royal Caribbean cruise lines on TV, I wonder if these folks realize that this is the guy who is singing their jingle.

We have a little light snow falling, just enough to cover the cars and walks and decks that were cleaned off yesterday. Some friends are returning from a vacation in Central America. We wouldn't want them to think that we've been having springtime without them.

We picked up a few inches of snow during the overnight, enough to make everything look clean and wintry again. A squirrel is digging through the snow to get at the seed buried below. It was snowing lightly, but now a burst of heavily snow has come through. That's the forecast for the day. We're expecting 6-7", enough for Mike to plow and maybe even enough for the snowblower.

My father is looking forward to his visits with his doctor at the VA so he can talk about sailing. He learned during hs last visit that his doctor has a sailboat. It was a model he'd heard of, but didn't know well. His book of American boats, purchased in 1963, didn't have an entry for it. (A former boss of mine is an engineering manager at Amazon.com. I should send him a note, asking if he can explain why a search for a book about American Sailboats turns up American Psycho as the second choice.)

I learned something else yesterday. My grandfather didn't die of lung problems, as I'd thought, but from a stroke. Adam and Jennie are planning to run a marathon this summer as a fund-raiser for stroke research. They sent a letter to my father, who, in turn, is planning to dedicate his contribution to his father. My grandfather had fallen in the driveway and hit his head. He had one stroke early during his hospital stay and then a second fatal one a couple of days later.

So, I had things to think about when, as Sandra, Marley, and I walked in to the camp, I slipped on the ice on the road. I hit the back of my head and few other parts. (Doesn't gravity seem to be stronger these days?) The bump on the head seems to have done neither harm nor good. Today I'm just sore. Some muscles were stretched in lengths and directions out of the ordinary. Because of a new medication, I can't take Vitamin I (ibuprofen), but Tylenol seems to be working ok.

Sandra and I had a very nice afternoon, a chance to be unhurried and just pay attention to what the other was saying. We had the visit with my father, the walk to the camp where the wind had blown the ice clear of snow, a ride in the car where we could talk about Thoreau, a trip to a shopping mall where I picked up a 7-port USB hub and a wireless card for an old computer onto which I plan to install Linux, and a delightful early supper at a new Panera Bread that's opened in Leominster. The nerdy crowd is speaking fondly of Panera Bread because the chain is providing free wireless Internet access.

It's been said that suicide is the ultimate temper tantrum, our last and loudest scream at the world. G'bye Dr. Thompson. (There's some uncertainty about his 'doctorate'. Some sources say he has a Ph. D. in journalism or maybe sociology from an unnamed university. Others claim that his doctorate is from a mail-order church.) Thompson was one of the first people to recognize the strength of Jimmy Carter's campaign. He dreamed of becoming governor of American Samoa and, instead, became a cartoon character, Uncle Duke. We need folks like him to shout to us from the far edge of the wilderness.

We're certainly blessed with a wonderful family. There were 16 of us at dinner last night, although Cassandra travels with her own meals. We had a room by ourselves and could move around easily to visit. Lily brought coloring materials, so she and Tess had fun bringing color to pictures of princesses and castles. Dinner took close to three hours, pushing us past the closing time of the skating rink. No one seemed terribly upset. We were tired and full and happy and ready to go home. Even though the game of pick-up-sticks ended with some hurt feelings among the younger set, everyone said that the evening was good.

Just before we went out to dinner, we received a call from our dear friends, Dan and Gay. Their calls and visits are always tonics for our souls. We met them nearly when we lived in Hudson. They were graduate students at BU School of Theology and worked as associate pastors at the Methodist church we attended. After completing their studies, they returned to Illinois, where they served a succession of churches, as is the Methodist tradition. They adopted four (!) children. One of the children, KC, died suddenly in 1999 of a undetected heart ailment; it was the summer before he was to start college. Currently Dan and Gay are in Champaign, where she is a chaplain at a youth shelter and he is music minister at a local church.

And just before the phone call, BPF (our bi-polar friend) stopped by to see Sandra's parents. She wanted them to come see her newly-painted mud room. It was her second visit of the day. On the first visit, she brought box of Valentine chocolates with some of the chocolates gone. The metal box is heart-shaped with a picture of Elvis on it.

While we're shoveling a half foot of snow, the full squad reports to Red Sox spring training tomorrow.

It looks like the hockey season is really not going to happen, for sure, definitely. Even though the games have been canceled, that doesn't mean that all of the traditions must vanish.