Notes from an area

A couple of times each year, I return to my college for some alumni work. This year, there was a mix-up and the stuff that I was to do didn't happen. Instead, I spent a couple of hours on a college campus, decades after I belong here. It's hard to get a sense of the mood on campus in just a couple of hours. The students seemed earnest, perhaps a bit too much so for a Saturday evening. Upstairs in the campus center, a band was rehearsing, playing old songs such as Piece of My Heart, Dixie Chicken, and Life During Wartime. They weren't very good. The rhythm section was ok, but the singers, one male and one female, each needed at least another half octave of range.

A sign on the southbound side of I-684:

Next Area
13 Miles

The next time that you fail to deliver on expectations at work, you can follow the example of Patrick Byrne, president of Overstock.com. "Q3 was rough. My bad."

The Red Sox will probably recover from the loss of GM Theo Epstein, but not quickly. With so many key players eligible for free agency and Manny being Manny, it'll be a challenge to put a contending team on the field next year. It was dumb to let him get away.

Yesterday on NPR's Morning Edition, Lynn Neary reported on an illustrated edition of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. The samples that I've seen on the NPR site are cute, but don't add to my appreciation of the elegant little original.

Happy 1st birthday, Cassandra.

Nice mask

We're gettting a nice stretch of Indian Summer with blue skies and mild breezes. On Saturday the eastern part of the state picked up as much as three inches of snow while we had none.

This will be a nice evening for trick-or-treaters. We don't get many. The neighborhood has just a few young kids. This year I only bought one (though large) bag of candy so we won't have a lot of leftovers. (We like 'em, but don't need 'em.)

I've long believed that the best way to deal with competitors is to send them new computers. Their productive will go into the tank and stay there for weeks as they get their new systems configured properly. Before my last trip to White Plains, I had to return one laptop that I'd borrowed and take another loaner with me on the trip. When I returned, my new laptop was ready. I'm still adding small programs and setting configurations. I expect that it will be Thanksgiving before I'm done.

I've added some new music to my weekly listening. WAMU, a public radio station in Washington, D.C., has a Sunday morning show called Stained Glass Bluegrass. The sound quality isn't great, sounding muddy like a cheap AM radio, but the music is fine.

Happy Birthday, Jane Pauley.