Gone like a cool breeze

I have three scheduled meetings today and a couple of people I hope to see, but haven't made appointments yet. I'll be out of here by three so I can get home in time for a birthday party.

Last night's Red Sox/Yankees game was broadcast on ESPN. Because the Yankees have their own cable channel with exclusive rights to broadcasts in this area, ESPN was blocked in the hotel room.

In 1990 or so, Terry Bisson wrote a short story for the now-defunct Omni magazine. The story, "They're Made Out of Meat," describes how visitors from another planet are shocked when they learn that our computers (us) are made out of meat. "ThatÂ’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine?" The story is now a seven-minute video, well worth the time to watch it.

Next stop in the Quiz Department: by looking at pictures, can you tell who invented a computer programming language and who is a serial killer? Here's the test. My score? Eight of 10.

IBM has come a long way from the white shirt and tie days, but it still draws the line regarding appearance. For example, it appears that IBM didn't like this guy's pink hair.

It looks as though 911 is out of service. (via) Do we call 912?

In 2002 a beagle named Woodsie was trapped in a culvert for nearly a day and half. Mike was part of the rescue team. At Tess's first communion party, we saw Woodsie's family. The dog is still doing fine. Last month, a dog in Texas was trapped in a pipe. Here's the story (via). Huskies avoid open water, even when in temperate climes, because their arctic instincts tell them falling into the water can mean death. (At least one reader of this journal used to train huskies; he may be able to elaborate on that.) You'd think that other breeds of dogs might have figured out that pipes are not their friends.

While on a business trip in 1998, I was driving on U.S. Route 101 in Santa Clara, California, when I received a call on my cell phone from Sandra. She told me that we had a new granddaughter, named Tess Mary.

Happy 8th Birthday, Tess.

Where there's smoke, there's Huck.

My father usually parks his car in his garage. The best way to know that he's home is by the smoke coming from the chimney. Nine or 10 months of the year, there's a fire in the stove when he's home.

When we visited him on Sunday, he mentioned that he had borrowed our pole saw from the camp. There were some limbs along his property's edge that were getting in the way of the wood delivery truck. We can all be very grateful that he chose to borrow the pole saw rather than getting up on a ladder with his chain saw.

We are working with a lot of people for whom English is not their native language. Sometimes there are idioms that are particular to American culture, as well as to the language. Earlier this week, I made a joking response to an email sent by a QA engineer from Turkey. She was worried that her original note wasn't clear. I reassured her that her message was very clear, but that my sense of humor is the thing that isn't clear. I apologized and hope that she's ok.

But, Americanisms march on. When I bough my lunch the other day, the cashier forgot to ring up one item. "My bad," she said in her rather thick Arabic accent.

On the way to New York, the exit numbers go like this:

33 - 31 - 29 - 28 - 27 - 29 - 28 - 27 - 26

I think that the Connecticut-New York state line is between exits 27 and 29.

On the way down, I stopped at Staples to pick up a couple of things. A very nice man helped me find what I needed. Then, he said, "If you need more help, I can ask one of the other guys."

Two jobs of note showed up in my automated searches for a technical documentation job. (I'm still not looking, but it's fun to see what shows up.) In both cases, they were looking for a detail-oriented writer. To paraphrase Chuck Berry, it must have been some otherbody. It isn't me.

• Diesel Mobile Mechanic.Pays attention to detail. Approaches work in a meticulous and thorough manner.


• US-OR-Portland-Detailed Technical Writer Position. (This was removed from the job site by the time I was able to get to it.)
  

The Red Sox were get a lot of coverage here, although it was rather glum after last night's pounding of the Pinstripes. The TV in the hotel room doesn't carry the Yankees channel, but the bar does. I let my co-workers report on the game this morning.

I didn't make this up, nor did I write any of it. (This page is ok, but some of the other links and pages may not, nay, are not safe for work.)

Happy Anniversary, Adam and Jennie.

Here they are

Edward Scott Dias MacGregor on the left.
Phillip Duncan Dias MacGregor on the right

Thanks to Aunt Barbara for the pictures.

Dept. of Corrections

In today's earlier post, I had incorrectly named Scott and Val's new sons. The boys' names are Charles and Scott.

Birthdays abound

Today we'll go to Tess's first communion today. Mike says that 100 people will be coming to the party afterwards.

The fence around our yard is in serious need of repair or replacement. We asked a local fence company to give us an estimate, which arrived on Friday. This morning, as I was preparing to pay this week's bills, I saw Marley walking through the neighbor's yard Yes, it's time to fix the fence.

If you work in a bank and someone tries to deposit a $25 million check, try to be a little suspicious, ok?

Michael Francis and I had an instant message chat as we tried to track down a book for a critique that he was writing. Because of copyright laws, it wasn't possible to find a copy of the book on the web. (He has already read the book and has the report written, but just needs a couple of quotes.)

Lost in the brouhaha about whether it's appropriate or not to sing the national anthem in Spanish is the basic fact that the tune is unsingable. My personal preference would be Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land. His son, Arlo, has some definite and differing ideas on that. Arlo says that if it becomes the national anthem, we won't be able to have as much fun changing the verses when we want and need to.

More about the national anthem at Scott McLellan's press briefing.

"Q Scott, I wonder -- on Friday, the President firmly said he believes the National Anthem should be sung in English. Kevin Phillips, the Republican analyst, wrote a book called American Dynasty, and in there he claims that during the President's 2000 campaign, he did sing the Star Spangled Banner in Spanish at some Hispanic festivals, various campaign events. Are you aware, do you recall that from the 2000 campaign?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I don't.

Q Do you think that that would be counter to what the President laid out on Friday?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't recall that, and I'm not going to try to speculate on something I haven't looked into."

We saw two Baltimore orioles (the birds, not the baseball players) snacking on the blossoms on our apple tree. Beautiful birds.

Congratulation to Val and Scott on the birth of their sons, Phillip and Scott.

Happy Birthday, TJL