If you can't hear, talk louder.

Well, yesterday afternoon's meeting started off on the downhill side and kept going. "We're going to have to manage this almost like a project release," the project leader told the 20 or so people who had come to talk about the, um, product release. We did have an agenda, but it was quickly set aside as we tried to get the teleconference and in-room projector set up. The people on the phone were told, "If you can't hear, speak up." We never did get anything to the remote participants so they could see what we were discussing. It was very technical stuff and the speakers kept referring to the slide presentation. (They had this cool laser pointer.)

During the meeting, there were two, three, and sometimes four conversations going on at once. One guy in the back of the room was the most chatty. I think that he was someone important, but I don't know because we never did introductions. The chairperson knew everyone and that seemed to be good enough.

The meeting that was scheduled to end at 5:00 let out at 5:45, but with no decisions made or action items assigned, except that we'll have another meeting next Thursday. In that state of bliss, I drove the three hours to home.

In the high-rent mall near the office down yonder, I saw mall cops patrolling the carpeted aisles on Segways.

God, grant me the serenity.... What's additionally weird is that, in the middle of the story about an AA meeting, there's this advertisement for a huge beer keg sale.

The wireless network in the house went down for a little nap this morning. When I ran through the usual diagnostics, I received this message So, I asked myself for assistance and recommended that we reboot the modem and router.

Queen Elizabeth II turns 80 today. Some days she looks better than others. Usually, the Brits celebrate her birthday in June, when the weather's better. It's good to be the Queen.

In the early 50s, Walt Kelly, of Pogo fame, was in regular conversation with the editors of Life to arrange for one of his drawings to appear on the magazine's cover. For a variety of reasons, the
cover kept getting postponed. Finally, as the story goes, the editors set a date - February 18, 1952. Nothing could stop it. Except that which did. King George VI died and was succeeded on the throne by his daughter, Elizabeth II. So, the Life magazine issue ran with a picture of the young Queen Elizabeth on the cover and Kelly's drawing inside.

Out there where moose stroll the railroad tracks, we send birthday greetings to Adam.

The view from the top floor

So, on this trip, I get an upgrade to the "Club Level" of the hotel. The room is about a third larger and I have a love seat instead of a chair. But, we've been on daylight saving time for more than two weeks and the alarm clock is still on standard time. Being on the top floor, I spend more time in the elevator. One of the boxes has a very clunky ride, like the cog railroad going to the top of Mount Washington. There is a free breakfast buffet, so I eat better and the company doesn't have to pay for my meal expense.

Last night we went to dinner with several members of the team. The sales people on our project picked up the tab in celebration of the signing of a new contract. It was a nice night so we walked to and fro. On the way, we passed a new Wal-Mart being built on the ground floor of an office building (?!). (We're were just a couple blocks from one of the most high-priced malls in the area, with Brooks Brothers, Louis Vuitton, Nordstrom, and Tiffany.) Returning, the long-time employees brought us past a shoe store, above which was the original home of this division of the company. We genuflected appropriately and got home a bit after 11.

I heard In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida on the radio when I was driving here. Few people clean and sober will care much for this song, but it lives on in legend. The car radio isn't really the best source for this kind of sound. Speakers facing out of the windows of a college dorm room, volume turned up to 11, on a spring afternoon, young people face down in the mud - that's where this song belongs.

Love the Diversity of God's Creation. ... A Beautiful Rainbow - And the Lord Said His Creation was GOOD!
Sounds nice, doesn't it? Think again.

It's a reef dweller, so the Humuhumu-nukunuku-a-pua'a, Hawai‘i's soon-to-be official state fish, isn't likely to wind up in Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.

I knew a guy who was an Elvis impersonator. He headed off to Las Vegas and, by all accounts, is doing well. This news, then, is likely to be unsettling, that the person who owns the rights to the Elvis images is trying to get unauthorized Elvii out of the building.

If you're out and around on May 25th, you might want to wear a hat, probably made of tin foil.

Of friends and family

We had Easter dinner at Mike and Lynn's, a grand gathering and a great feast. Adam and Lily joined us. (Jennie had to work on her recertification exam.) We had lamb and ham and potatoes and salad and summer squash casserole and on and on. I lucked out (in many ways). While the last-minute preparations were underway, I got to hold Miss Cassie.

Late in the afternoon, we brought leftovers to my father. His friend, Ted, had come over for sauna. Ted's an interesting guy, a member of the ski troops in WWII, a working artist in Finland for nearly 20 years, a teacher of art at a local community college for another 20 or so, a Ph. D. in linguists or anthropology or somesuch, with a thesis on commonalities of Nordic languages, including the Inuit and Sami. Ted comes for sauna every three or four weeks and usually brings a load of firewood in payment.

After our brief visit, we went to the camp. Half up the hill on the camp road, we let Marley out of the car so that he can run. A short way up the road, we met a neighbor who was letting his new golden retriever, Max, run alongside the ATV. Sometimes Marley isn't the best behaved around other dogs, particularly males, but meeting was jolly. They charged around the woods and had a grand time. We went to the camp with our neighbor and the dogs continued with their play date.
As you might suspect, I read a lot of stuff from a lot of web sources. RSS makes it too easy to keep track of 100s of web sites. Most of the material I find is useful in one way or another. A lot of the news, however, focuses on the strange doings of celebrities. It's interesting for a while, but gets stale and then dreary.

Friend Tom cites Bill Russell when saying that the only thing that a performer owes his fans is the performance. It's a way of saying, "My life off-court is mine." It applies to performers in other fields as well. A few years ago, I listened to a reading of Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea, read by Charlton "If they want my gun, they'll have to rip it out of my cold, dead fingers." Heston. His reading was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

This comes up because there's a lot in the news these days about the off-screen, off-stage, or off-field behavior of many performers and celebrities. Take Tom Cruise. Please. Norman Mailer has been a mind-numbing loony and yet will write some of the best prose of his time. Shirley MacLaine, Robert Downey, Jr., Dennis Rodman, Ted Williams, Curt Schilling (Republican), Barbra Streisand - all are or have been loopy until the lights come on. Oh, and then, of course, is the King, Elvis, whose off-stage wackiness killed him, even as he brought his career around with one of the most stunning comebacks ever.

And so, it would be nice to step back from our celebrity obsession for a while so that we can focus on the serious problems of the world, such as two young women from Orkney who are afraid of ketchup.