Fearful brown bottle! Its sting presages a scar -- a new lesson learned.

A morning in a quiet house. Sandra is on an adventure with a friend to visit Fallingwater, the house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, near Pittsburgh. They left early this morning to fly from Providence.

This morning's automatic search for a technical documentation job produced these:

• Biohazard Safety Manager - "Develop emergency response policies for spills and exposures to such chemical/radiological materials such as chemotherapeutic agents, isotopes and hazardous chemical materials."
• Maintenance & Sanitation Manager - Five (5) years supervisory experience in a nutraceutical / pharmaceutical manufacturing environment required. Must have experience working with equipment used in the manufacture, bottling and packaging of dietary supplements and powders.

The weather has been summer-like for the past couple of days, meaning that it's time to bring out the summer toys. If you build or borrow The Ultimate Water Gun (using an expended fire extinguisher, motorcycle helmet, and other sundry parts), you, too, could look like this.

Marley's having such a great time at the Island, going everywhere that Woody and Marian go, whether it's a walk down the lane, a ride into town, or stroll behind the self-propelled lawn mower. Our house is empty, just the two of us, for the first time in, like, ever. Sandra and I have talked a lot about getting another pet. There are rescue programs that need foster homes for various breeds of dog. (Dunno about cats.) In any case, if we do get another pet, it'll be a traditional on and not something such as Mike the Headless Chicken.

Buzzword Bingo (and its PG-13 cousin) have been around the business world for a while. Basically, you get a Bingo card with commonly-overused words and phrases. When you hear the word or phrase, you mark your card. When you have five marks in a row, you get to shout "Bingo." Tim Russert was the Class Day speaker at Harvard this week and delivered a speech that has a lot in common with other speeches he's given. Naturally, the best and brightest jumped into action and created Tim Russert Bingo.

My manager and I get along well. When he stops by my cube, usually unannounced, he always sees something interesting on my computer screen. Late yesterday afternoon, he saw an Emacs window full of Perl code. That I had no idea what I was doing and that the code wasn't working didn't come up in conversation.

On the ride home yesterday, I listened to samples from the Periodic Table of Haiku. It's not as good as The Elements by Tom Lehrer, but it was a good distraction from the wackiness of my fellow commuters.

How high the moon

Mornings are simpler by a couple of steps. With Marley off frolicking in the Great White North for the summer, I don't have to hurry to feed a hungry dog. And, finally, we don't need a fire in the wood stove. Mornings are simpler and simpler is good.

The early corn from Florida is starting to show up in the stores. Of course, it isn't as good as corn fresh from the field, but it's still pretty tasty. Boiling water on a steamy day isn't a good idea, so I tried cooking the corn in the microwave. The Betty Crocker cookbook is handy for many things, but not for microwave cooking. A quick Google search showed me that I should cook corn, in the husks, on full power for about a minute-and-a-half per ear. Once again, the Web proves to be the source of all that is good and wise.

I had a good chat with my manager yesterday afternoon. It started off as a discussion about the lack of a spell checker in the latest AOL Instant Messenger and led through lots of turns - nuclear submarines and Soviet space programs, networking (personal and systems) at Digital, MIT graduates as a breed apart, self-absorbed bloggers - and ended with his mentioning that he'd spoken favorably about me to his boss. There might be a permanent opening, but I'll keep my hopes in check.

Today marks a couple of events, one tragic and the other pleasant. In 1953 a tornado struck Worcester, killing 94 people. In 1915 Les Paul was born. I had played a Les Paul guitar once; it belonged to a friend in college. Sweet, smooth sound and action.

Hitting the market window, like a bird

The most common mispronunciation of our last name is Hakkarainian, making the name sound Armenian. Now, even my automated job searches are getting into the act.

Marian reports that Marley came upstairs at five yesterday morning and licked her face.

With the Red Sox doing the Curly Shuffle in St. Louis again last night, we watched a good show about Hawaii on Globe Trekker. At one point, a Hawaiian girl was helping host Megan McCormick gather wild flowers for a lei. As a part of a deeply traditional and spiritual ritual, Megan would bring the lei as a gift to the people hosting a luau. The girl was collecting the flowers in a Wal-Mart plastic bag.

And, in other world news, Hindus marry toads, hope for rain.

I don't know why the U.S. Customs folks let this guy in the country, but I'm pretty sure I know why Canada didn't want him: Man with what appeared to be a bloody chain saw let into U.S. - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com

Fight ageism by looking younger, this guy says. I really hope that it's a joke. "Guys, don't forget about your moustache. Generally, it looks best if you color your hair your original color." "A good face lift makes you look 10 years younger and lasts a long time." And women should fight sexism how? And people of color should fight racism how? And if you're short, well, you could try various stretching techniques.

Today is a very special day in Dilbert's life. It's the birthday of Scott Adams. (Today's title is from a Dilbert strip.)

Science projects

With just the two of us at home now, leftovers in the refrigerator are more likely to wind up as little bags and dishes of "What's This?" It might be simpler to put the food straight into the dishwasher and eat from there.

At yesterday's doctor's appointment, we decided to change some medications, eliminating one product and returning to another that I'd used a couple of years ago. The side effects are riskier, but the stuff worked well. It's also expensive, with a month's supply more than $250. Thank goodness for insurance.

After hearing a radio interview with Dr. Peter Kramer, I ordered and have started reading his new book, Against Depression. I'm not far enough along to have a real opinion about the book yet. Among his key points is that depression is no more ennobling than myopia or shingles. I'll have more comments about the book as I move through it.

And with the Red Sox playing the way that they are, I'm going to have more time for reading. The Sox are in St. Louis, scene of last year's glorious victory. Last night's game was, well, all too common. I have family in the St. Louis area, my father's brother's family. I hope that they're enjoying the series.

Let me see if I've got this right. Citigroup sends millions of customer records on an unencrypted tape via UPS. Why not just send blank checks to the bad guys and cut out the middleman?

Pulling the start cord on the lawnmower of life

Adam, Jennie, and Lily came for a visit, dinner, and sauna at the camp on Saturday. I cooked some steaks on the outside grill and they came out well. Adam's helping us with the installation of the new gas cooktop. I got tired just thinking about his day on Saturday. He worked the overnight shift, ran 15 miles after work, slept for a few hours, and drove to see us. We made sure that he had an extra cup of coffee for the ride home.

In two weeks, they will have completed their fund-raising race. Adam's slated to run a marathon, Jennie a half-marathon, as a fund-raiser for stroke research.

My father and his friends built a massive stone fireplace at the camp. The mortar was mixed by a long-time friend, a fellow who still visits my father for sauna every few weeks. (The friend is up in Hudson's Bay this week, visiting with the Cree Indians.) Anyway, this friend was new to mixing mortar. As a result, little white flakes and chunks have been falling off the fireplace for 60 years. My father grumbles about it, good-naturedly, mostly. When we are cleaning up, we mutter this guy's name. We're passing the info along to Mike and Adam, so the next generations can continue the grumbling.

The hydrangea that Sandra planted by the boathouse is coming back. The small hemlocks along the paths have fresh green tips of new growth. Sandra found another trillium in the woods. She reports that the ground is very wet, even a couple of hundred feet from the water's edge.

We met with the contractor about putting a road from our parking area to the back of the camp. He gave us can of orange spray paint which we used to mark the trees that we wanted cut down. It'll be both exhilarating and saddening to have the trees come down, opening us to much more sunlight. We didn't keep count, but it may be three or four dozen trees that are slated to come down. They're tall trees in many cases, near power lines or the camp. It's work that's best donw by professionals.

Saturday was calm. (Or, as they say in PEI, "Cam, dear.") We had a canoe ride, gliding smoothly through the pollen that coat the water in the cove. There were several boats on the lake, including Elden and my father. The sun was strong and warm.

Screwdrivers have legs and bad homing instincts. Afer the the lawn mover would start, I wanted to remove the air filter and open up the butterfly valve a bit. No flathead screwdriver. Fortunately I had my Swiss army knife. Even more fortunately, my father showed up so I didn't have time to do the mowing. Next week, for sure.

So, my father, who reminds us that when he was a kid, commercial radio didn't exist, is thinking of giving up his landline phone for a cell phone. We have a few more details to resolve, including the setup of his voice mail. It could be a very good idea, saving him $20-$30 per month. Or, it could be something else.

After all that tumult of the weekend, it's easy to forget that it's time to go back to work. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. I'm ready, as are those around me who've been patient andkind Knowing what's not working doesn't automatically translate into knowing what does.