Cogito, ergo sum. Cogito.

There are a couple of oak trees in the back yard that don't look healthy. They have a mold on the trunk that may be the culprit. Unlike the sudden oak death that's been killing oaks around the country, in which case the tree is dead within weeks, this ailment has been progressing for a year or more. These aren't very old trees, perhaps 40-50 years. We'll see what kind of summer they have and make our decision accordingly.

After a long and agitated wait, we have five requisitions to hire people, two in the office where I work and three in New York. In addition, I'll be able to bring one or two people for six-month contracts. We have a couple of good candides already and a couple more will be coming in to talk with us next week. Even with those new hires, we'll have quite a challenge to meet the deadlines schedule for late June and early July. During a conference call yesterday afternoon, a co-worker asked if this was a time to panic. I said that a bit of panic might not be out of line. At which she panicked, "If you say it's time to panic..."

Just Marley and me for the evening. Sandra's gone into Boston to visit a friend she's known since second-grade. The families moved to different towns and Sandra's friend has been in California since college, I believe. She has two children, the youngest is attending BU as an art major. Sandra's friend and her daughter will fly back to California tomorrow.

There's a threat of frost tonight and again tomorrow, although it's not likely that we'll get any her or at the camp. This is kind of frost that settles into the valleys. This is something that I have trouble understands. If you go up to the top of a hill, you'll be cooler. Here's a table that shows the effect. I'll track down an explantion later.

One of the maxims in parenting is that if a kid wants to mow the lawn, the kid is probably too young. The grandson of our next door neighbors is somewhere between eight and 10. I don't know if he volunteered or not, but he did a good job.
Fifteen years ago or so, I heard a loud explosion next door. I ran out of the house, expecting to see that the furnace had exploded. The lawn-mowing kid's father was standing on their door step. "It was nothin," he said. "Just an M80."

Not only is this in Deleware getting fired, they're throwing books of lawsuits at him as he runs out the door. Hel also spent an "spent an inordinate amount of time engaged in personal iPod-related activities."

Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon has been on the Billboard chart for 1500 weeks, a record. About half of those weeks were consecutive, starting in 1973. (The article has the wrong album cover. It should be this.)

There was a nice Spiritul Life column in today's Boston Globe about philosophical healing. My mother was quite taken by the idea of philosophical counseling when she first encountered it.

April showers bring May showers

A light rain started overnight and will continue through the day. We need the rain. Yesterday, the National Weather Service had a red flag warning for fire danger. Large brush fires were reported in Auburn and in the Great Blue Hills Reservation.

During a recent visit, my father talked about a trip to Finland with with his friend, Ted, in the mid-70s. We learned about the archipelago off the coast of Finland and its Swedish-speaking inhabitants. We learned about a guy (friend or relative, we're not sure) named John who could lift a 55-gallon barrel of oil by the rim, using just his finger tips. When the scrapbook came out, we saw pictures of the islands, as well as a picture postcard of my grandmother's home town, Kannonkoski. Judging from the cars, two Volkswagens and a Saab, in the picture, the aerial shot was taken some time in the 60s. My grandfather came from the neighboring town of Kivijärvi. Thanks to Sandra's efforts, we have a good genealogical record of my grandmother's family. We have, however, almost nothing about my grandfather. He left for American and seemed to have no contact with his family again.

The little cove next to the boathouse is lined with old tires. Because we now tie the boat to the dock near the sauna, we don't need those tires and plan to remove them. Anyone want a couple dozen 40-year old tires? Turning them into furniture is a possibility. As long a tradition as it is, the option of throwing them on the side of some dirt road has fallen from favor.

Even as Sears has branched out to show other brand-name products, such as Whirlpool, Frigidaire, and Milwaukee, it still features its own brands prominently. So, the Craftsman and Kenmore products are easy to find. Around the store, signs displaying the brand names are hanging on the walls, although not always with the best placement. At a nearby mall, a sign for DieHard batteries was placed prominently above the women's shoes department. Free jumper cables with each set of pumps.

The other day, I heard Josh White perform Strange Fruit a song long associated with Billie Holliday. His version was every bit as terrifying, even though his voice had nowhere the range or force. His understated performance made the material all the more unnverving.

Last week, I did a Google search to find out more about the meeting between China's president Hu and our W. One of the papers that had a worthwhile writeup was the World Peace Herald. My mother and her close friends would have been interested in anything that talked regularly about peace in the world. Well, it turns out that the WPH is published by the Unification Church, aka the Moonies. (See note at the bottom of the column.)

If you're going to get sick, July's not a good month. (Here's why.) This guy, for example, chose April to drive 12 nails into his head.

A guy tries to board a flight at Rhode Island's T.F. Green Airport. The guy's got a loaded handgun in his carry-on bag, along with extra ammunition. You'd think that would be the weird part. No, the weird part is that the guy was "released on an unsecured bond this morning because he is not considered a flight risk." What part of trying to board an airplane didn't they understand?

American Airlines is offering weekend getaway fares. For $199, you can fly from New York to Los Angeles. Or, for the same $199, you can fly from Chicago to La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes

We probably won't be singing The Internationale today, but today's work boycott by immigrants is going to be the largest labor action that we've seen in a long time.

More than half of our team at work is foreign-born, from east, south, and west Asia, all engineers, all professionals. And for each one of them, there are a dozen whom we don't see, the people who pick our vegetables, build our roads, clean our offices and hotels, and wash our dishes at the restaurants where we eat. If nothing else, perhaps today we'll see these people, see them by their absence.

We can be further enlightened to know that Pravda (yes, it still exists) thinks that we're on the wrong track with our multiculturalism. To which, Mikhail Gorbachev says that both countries are on the same track, heading toward each other, as in the days of the Cold War. "We have not yet left the past behind: its death grip can be felt everywhere."

A story that we didn't finish reading.

It wasn't a good thing when the White House had its mojo, so I'm pretty well convinced that Josh Bolten's plan to get it back won't be a good thing, either.

I spend quite a bit of time waiting in line at the pharmacy. I want to be respectful of the others in line, but some things are out of my control. One evening, I stood behind an elderly man who was wearing hearing aids.

"Take two of these when you get home and one every six hours until the symptoms are gone," said the pharmacist.
"What's that?" said the man, leaning forward.
The pharmacist repeated the instructions, a bit more slowly and loudly.
"Take two," he said.
Louder yet. "And one every six hours until your symptoms are gone."
"Symptoms?"
Loudest. 'Until your gout doesn't bother you."
"Oh. OK."

Spring continues to insinuate itself into our days. The music from the ice cream truck is a part of the evening's sounds. Young teenagers up the street play with a Frisbee, although they are, by any measure, pretty bad at it. The Frisbee goes into the bushes, into the trees, every place except into the hands of the intended receiver. The leaves on the trees are coming along nicely. To our north and west are towns that are two or three hundred feet higher than we are. Their trees are at least a week behind our pace.

Among the things that we inherited from my mother were her pens. She used Papermate pens and bought them by the handful. Because we're not writing as much as she did (who could?), these pens are lasting a long time.

Spring's a' springing

We spent this season's first night at the camp on Friday. Sandra went there in the afternoon to open up, start a fire, clean the yard, and, in general, make the place ready for overnight guests. There had been some overnighters before, as evidenced by the acorn on the shelf above the couch. We won't turn on the water for a couple more weeks, so water for washing (people and dishes) and coffee needed to be fetched from the lake by a bucket. I learned a long time ago, staying at my aunt and uncle's camp in Vermont, where water had to be brought from the stream, that carrying two buckets is easier than carrying one. Better balance. We have just one bucket at our camp, but we'll endure.

The next day we had three visitors. First, my father arrived a bit before noon for coffee and Finnish coffee bread. A short while later, boat guy Andy and his dog, Hydro, came to help us get the boat ready for the season. Hydro, a youthful yellow Lab, didn't do much work on the boat, but he kept Marley entertained. A slight row broke out when Hydro took one of Marley's squeak toys. Overall, though, the two dogs played hard and well.

Marley's showing signs of age. The play date with Hydro wore him out. Whenever he can, he finds places in the sun for his naps. Since we cleared away the trees, the area behind the camp is bright and sunny and the bed of hemlock and pine needles is warm. It's a good place for an old dog.

Next Saturday my father will go to the burial services for his friend, Arne, who died a few months ago. He'd known Arne since the time they worked in the Quincy shipyards in the 30s. Arne was the last of my father's friends who were the same age as my father.

We asked my father if he knew the way to the town where the services will be held. He did. He knew a guy, named Bill, who lived in that town. Bill drank a bit and when Bill drank, he regularly drove into a particular tree in the center of town. It happened so often that Bill's friends hung a old tire on the tree and put up a sign that said, "Bill's Tree." Bill had to spend a lot of time calling in favors from his political friends so that he could keep his license and get to work.

A black bear and her cubs were discovered in a maple tree in Barre. It took two state agencies and the local fire department to bring the bears down safely. The bears were then delivered to the Phillipston wildlife preserve, about three miles, as the bears walk, from our camp.

A news item that I somehow missed: last Friday was National Hairball Awareness Day.

The recent news about the Massachusetts department of health publishing a report that ties incidents of cancer to a toxic waste site in Ashland reminds me of the Nashua River in Fitchburg in the 60s. The river would be different colors, depending on the dyes that the paper mills were using that day. Sometimes red, sometimes yellow, sometimes green. We never swam in it, nor did I know anybody who tried to fish there. The river is good now, although I would still hesitate to put my toe in there, unless that toe was in a rubber boot.