Seventeen syllables in the rain

Today, 05-07-05, is seen by some as Haiku Day. On this day, choose Haiku as poetry. On others, choose Haiku as a place in Hawaii.

National Weather Service: "quite an impressive coastal storm for so late in the season with WV loop showing classic comma configuration. ... impressive isentropic lift and frontogenetic forcing wraps northwest from the ocean."

Don't tell the bad guys. An anti-terrorism drill at Logan Airport in Boston has been postponed because of today's stormy weather. The apparel industry, though, is ready. But, talk about your weapons of mass destruction - there are news reports of an Iranian bid for MG-Rover.

Oliver Wendell Holmes characterized the State House in Boston as the hub of the solar system. Since then, Boston is often call The Hub. It seemed a bit odd that a news story from CBC Charlottetown would carry this headline: Stones to rock hub city. Oh, wait, Moncton?

Adam took Sandra to breakfast for Mother's Day yesterday. It was a fine visit. Last year, he and I went out for lunch on Father's Day. We sat and talked for a couple of hours. It's not often that we get a chance for unbroken time like that.

My manager stopped by my office this week to talk about my assignments for the upcoming release. Much of the work will focus on our products' support for NFS V4. I'll also continue to provide systems and tools work. He was also encouraging about long-term, permanent prospects. He couldn't make commitments yet because there are other gears in motion elsewhere in the organization. All the same, I was pleased.

Which is a good thing, because today's automated job search for technical documentation positions turned up leads for:

• Preschool Director in Gardner, Kansas
• Accessories Developer for a company in Santa Fe Spring, California, that design, markets, and distributes snowboard boots and bindings, helmet, and pads.
  

Happy 80th Birthday, TJL.

Apostrophes would be out of control!

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

BPF stopped by last night with a sweet gift of flowers from her garden. She was on her way to a 9PM choir rehearsal. She said that she's teaching Spanish, folk dancing, and golf at an elementary school in a nearby small town.

Often I will see people (men, mostly) walking down the corridor at work, carrying a laptop and a cup of coffee, the cell phone held against their ear uncomfortably with their shoulders. Something like this might make that contortionist act easier.

People who have worked in companies with energetic marketing department know that it's very easy to accumulate many t-shirts and regular shirts with logos and commemorative designs. When we get too many of them, the good shirts go on to a shelter, the not-so-good ones are torn up and used to clean what the dog didn't eat well enough. In spite of last year's purge, I still have a couple stacks o' shirts in my closet. Anyway, here's another solution, a quilt made of old t-shirts. (The author has nice things to say about his mother-in-law, too.)

The University of Minnesota chose the name Scholars Walk, rather than Scholar's Walk, for a walkway. According to news reports, the school's style guide avoids use of apostrophes on building names and in other titles. The CEO of the university "was concerned that an apostrophe signifies ownership that could be misconstrued as exclusivity."

05-05-05

The bird bath is a little skating rink this morning.

Today's three fives augers well for Tony Blair's election chances, or so say the numerologists across the pond

We bought a new microwave oven recently. There's a little display above the command buttons. When I first connected the oven, the little display said, "Welcome to Panasonic. Please read the owner's manual." Nice plug for our profession. Even better, the unit is designed well enough that we don't need the manual very much at all. Our only complaint is that the oven plays havoc with the cordless telephone nearby. I guess it's time to upgrade to a 5.8 Ghz phone. Companies ought to sell microwaves and cordless phones in pairs.

In Australia, in order to qualify for unemployment insurance payments, the unemployed need to work on projects that will help their chances of locating work. A group is trying to match unemployed tech folks with with open source software projects to help them meet their community service obligations. OpenOffice and Ubuntu Linux Documentation are among the projects. (Via ./)

I just installed the Google Web Accelerator beta on my home system. So far, it appears that web pages do load more quickly. If you decide to install GWA, read the privacy policy carefully first.

Just in time for Mother's Day - an iPod shuffle made from everyone's favorite meat-like substance.

Next laundry day, I'm going to try these instructions for folding a fitted sheet.

This morning's email brings a request for assistance from Mrs. Suha Arafat, the widow of Yasser Arafat. She needs my help to retrienve monies from a secret bank account. My reward, if I can figure out how to parse this, is "we shall share in the ratio of 30%for you 65% and 5% for expenses incured,as you know there is know transaction of such huge amount that does not require expenses." I'm flattered and humbled.

We in da' house, ayuh.

Clouds like blankets

A few clouds came in overnight, holding the heat close to the ground, so we didn't get a frost. It's still chilly in the house, though. Marley has found a spot in front of the stove and in the sun.

Sandra and I working from home today. I have a medical test this afternoon (routine), but, in preparation, I couldn't eat for a day and a half. Some people fast as a way of gaining physical and spiritual focus. Countless millions go without food because there is no food. Some just eat because they don't know what not to eat. Anyway, I can have coffee, so life is good.

Today's automated job search for a technical documentation position:

• Executive Staffing Assistant. I'm pretty sure that I know what they mean when the job description says, "This position requires a high level of customer touch," but, well, ..... Also, would you work at a place that describes your "general accountabilities"?
• Lone Star Research Doctor Wanted in Houston! "*We are NOT looking for a doctor who has gone into patient care or treatment"

I carry a Swiss army knife, a modest-sized one with scissors, screwdriver, tweezers, toothpick, and, oh, yes, knife blades. I use it every day for something or other. I also lose the knives, once every two or three years. Now I know where I can go for a lifetime of replacement knives. The National Transportation Safety Administration (NTSA), through state surplus offices is selling confiscated items on eBay.

Change is the new normal

Our neighbor is in Florida this week, visiting family. She has MS and has been house-bound for as long as we've lived here. This is her first trip away from home.

Another neighbor has put her home up for sale. She moved in with her son several months ago after falling often. The ambulance was regularly visiting her house. Increasingly she was needing help maintaining her house. Her husband died 20 or so years ago.

I read in the trade journals that a couple of executives from IBM Rational have moved on.

Over the weekend we watched The Anchorman. I thought that it was an entirely forgettable movie, but I was mistaken. One scene has the male performers singing that annoying 70s song, Afternoon Delight, albeit in pretty good harmony. (The song showed up in a Simpsons episode as well.) So, now, I have that song stuck in my head. Given that we have a limited number of thoughts for a lifetime, I wonder what I won't be able to think about when the time comes. Oops, there goes another one.

Not only that, but it's only going to get worse. Some hacker has found a way to store songs on an RFID tag, such that when you move the chip near a reader, the song plays. (The telling comment is "the application is best explained by reading the sourcecode.")

Today's automated job search for a technical documentation position produced listings for a Senior Executive Secretary and Executive Secretary. Oh, but I also received an email informing me that I've won ZAR 18,000,000 in the South African lottery (about $3M). Opportunities on all fronts.

Green, green, rocky road

Near my father's house is a field where we played baseball and football. After we got out of high school, the family sold the house and moved away. The new owners at first kept the field mowed, but, after a few years, they let it go. The field is now woods, blending nicely with the deeper woods in back. You'd never know that kids used to play ball there.

And along the narrow roads, you see stone walls, tumbled down and nearly overgrown with trees and brush. They're all over New England. No matter how rugged the terrain, you'll find these stone walls, meaning that some brave or magnificently deluded soul tried to farm this land. They cleared the land for plowing and every winter brought forth more rocks for the field and tosses the rocks in the wall to the side.

Telecommunications, as Tom Friedman observed, has made the world flat. I had to order some supplies from a company that makes financial software. After the usual hops through the telephone options, I speak to a person. He's a pleasant man with a fairly thick Indian accent. "Hello, thank you for calling Intuit supplies and service. How may I help you? My name is, uh, Joe."

Hauskaa vappua

Rabbit, Rabbit.

It's also May Day, the worker's day in much of the world. In Finland it's a very big deal. I remember getting May baskets from my grandmother. They had candy 'n stuff and looked a lot like Easter baskets. Our family wasn't very political. Some Finns were communists and May Day had worldwide meaning. Other Finns were as conservative in their politics as they were in their religion. Throughout the year, unless you knew the people well, you stayed away from politics and religion, keeping the conversations to sauna and the quality of the year's blueberry crop.

We had a chance to get together with Mike and Lynn this weekend, the first time in quite a while. They're good company. Most of the talk focused on the family, because the family drives much of what we do, think, and feel. It was a good time and we returned home restored.

Our public TV stations concluded another fund-raising screed last night, featuring bands such as Procul Harum, as they try to mesmerize baby-boomers into giving up their credit card numbers. Now, PH had a couple of big hits back when people said, "Groovy." They even had a song, Repent Walpurgisnacht, the kind of overbearing instrumental that sounded deep then, but doesn't hold up well over the decades.

The U.S. has had a boycott of Canadian beef because of mad cow disease. It's hit Canada hard and in ways that we wouldn't expect. Canadian ranchers have had to reduce their herds, meaning that there are fewer cows for young people to tip. As a result, they've had to seek other outlets for their passions. The victim's profile is here.

110,000 volt Taser Cannon. Probably too tame for Florida.