Notes from another home town

I spent a lot of my younger days in the Amherst area - as a student, as a worker, as a loiterer. I first visited the area when my father was working on the construction of the Southwest dorms at UMass in the early 1960s. I'd ride to town with him and, while he was at work, I'd hang around campus. I took a couple of summer courses between my junior and senior years in high school. One of the courses was taught by William Julius Wilson.

The story of my life from that time until I graduated from Amherst College late in the next decade is one best delivered in small slices. More slices later.

A few things that I noticed when I came into town this time:

• There are lots more people of color. That shouldn't be surprising, but I've been staying close to home for the past year and have seen mostly white folks.
• There are more people smoking, younger people mostly.
• There are fewer people talking on their cell phones while driving. Kids are talking and sending text messages while walking or sitting in coffee shops, but the soccer parents are just driving.
  

Is there an uglier building that the Marriott Courtyard in Hadley,sitting in what had been great farm land?

But, the Courtyard is just one of the latest in the commercial takeover of our land and psyches by big chains. It's easier to go to the Whole Foods store on Route 9 than drive five miles to the south to shop at the locally-owned Atkins Farm. Dave's Soda and Pet Food City, one of my favorite places, is a small, regional chain, but it sits in a strip mall that starts with Wal-Mart and ends with Michael's. It's what I call Route-9-ization. Pretty much the length of Massachusetts state route 9, you've got strip malls, mostly filled with the same chains that you saw 20 miles ago. There are still some undeveloped stretches - between Worcester and Belchertown and west of Northampton, but those sections will likely go under in our lifetimes.

What you missed on TV

From the July 26, 1962 Gardner News:

The Uncomfortable Truth. Nobody reads your blog.

From DespairWear:


Via About:Blank.

Dept. of Spam

Well, the folks at Hormel are doing well in these tougher times: The Associated Press: Sales of Spam rise as consumers trim food costs.

We should remember, though. If you are eating so much Spam that eating Spam Lite improves your diet, you've probably got more problems than how much Spam you're eating.

This fortnight in RoasterBoy's playlist

Get RB Playlist

Tim Buckley - Buzzin Fly [Thursday, May 29, 08 at 07:09 PM GMT]

One
of the sweetest songs from the great folk music scare of the 60s:
YouTube - Tim Buckley Buzzin Fly - Radio Toast for Cancer Research .
Tim Buckley died from a heroin overdose in 1975.

The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time : Rolling Stone [Thursday, May 29, 08 at 06:55 PM GMT]

Mostly,
lists such as this, The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time : Rolling
Stone , are kindling for arguments, particularly if you try to claim
that "You Really Got Me" is eight places better than "Voodoo Child
(Slight Return)". Nevertheless, there's a lot of good stuff here. Via
Fark Music , who reports " It proves, once again, submitter's theory
that 60s music > 70s music > 80s music > 90s music > 00s
music."

What's on RoasterBoy's iPod? [Thursday, May 29, 08 at 02:30 PM GMT]

Izabella
Jimi Hendrix The Lowlands [f/Jaime Hanna & Jonathan MC Euen] The
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Happy Feelin' Earth Wind & Fire Tennesee
Stud Johnny Cash Give The Fiddler A Dram Garnet Rogers Introduction
Jimi Hendrix Complainte Pour Ste Catherine Kate & Anna McGarrigle
One Way Ticket Leann Rimes The Torture Never Stops Part Two Frank Zappa
Lonely In Love Lyle Lovett A Hard Day's Night The Beatles Fire And
Brimstone Neville Brothers Mystery Train Paul Butterfield…

Theme from The Andy Griffith Show [Wednesday, May 28, 08 at 08:29 AM GMT]

If
you have to have a tune stuck in your head, this is a good one: The
Fishin' Hole (theme to The Andy Griffith Show) by Andy Griffith
Songfacts

MilkandCookies - Muppets: I'm My Own Grandpa [Wednesday, May 21, 08 at 08:22 PM GMT]

MilkandCookies - Muppets: I'm My Own Grandpa

Searching for your sole

Note to self: when planning a crime in Finland, be sure to wear American shoes:Police to set up national shoe print register

On racism and spam

The other day, I received an email that provided a brief news story about IBM and its Rational software division, where I used to work. The message, IBM, TCQA Partner to Boost Nigeria, however, wound up in my Gmail's Spam folder.

There has been a long-running email scam, sometimes called the Nigerian Scam or the 419 scam. Basically, it requests that the receiver send money as part of a plan to free a large sum of money that's been held in an account in a bank in Nigeria.

While it's a good idea for spam filters to try to catch these kinds of illicit and dangerous pitches, it's less good when any mention of Nigeria in an email is enough to cause a message to flagged as spam.

I should note that Gmail's spam filtering is, overall, remarkably good. Very few spam messages sneak in (maybe three or four a year) and there are also very few false positives (legitimate messages marked as spam). It's still a good idea to review messages to make sure that the good and bad stuff aren't getting mixed up.

Retail trends in our fair burg

Holden presents itself as a pretty well-off suburb. The prize fights surrounding the maintenance of the historic district in the center of town when a gas station wanted to put up canopies over the gas pumps was stuff of legend (even though the canopies eventually did go up).

So, there are a couple of interesting trends in the Big Y shopping plaza just south of the town center. Bhadon Gifts has offered fun and exotic gifts for 13 years. My mother loved the place and got to know the staff quite well. It was a bit of a surprise, then, to see that they're closing this store to consolidate back into their one store in the Tatnuck section of Worcester.

In the meantime, Dollar Tree has opened a store in the same plaza. Dollar Tree has as its marketing strategy everything for a buck. You'll find World's Greatest Dad pillows, plastic drinkware, and car sponge with rope for a dollar. The place looked busy this morning, busier, certainly, than Bhadon's. Meanwhile, on Main Street, there were no cars in front of the Talbot's clothing shop.

If only we had transparent skin

The human body is complex and doesn't give up its secrets easily.

For quite a few months, I've had an elevated CK level along with muscle pain that doesn't correlate to overuse or apparent injury. The CK level (creatine kinase) is the measure of an enzyme that shows up when there's been muscle damage. Normal readings top out at 200 or so. Mine has been been in the 700-800 range. We've ruled out the more common causes, such statins.

Last week, I met with a neurologist who prescribed a number of blood tests (five vials worth) as well as arranging for a surgical consult. This afternoon, I'll have a muscle biopsy. The muscle tissue may reveal more of what's going on than the doctors can find out by triangulating through lab tests. In a couple of weeks, I'll meet with the neurologist again to review the results.

Armed with a copy of my blood test results from last week and an hour or so with Google, I have a couple of ideas of what might be afoot. Nothing really bad jumped out. It'll be interesting to see how a Google-powered amateur compares to a professional.<sup>1

1</sup>My doctor's diploma from Harvard is English. She graduated in 1995. My diploma, from a nu, is in Latin. When I was sitting with a group of friends after our graduation, we discovered that none of could read our diplomas. Finally, the father of one of the other graduates, a classics professor, translated it for us. I wonder if colleges are still using Latin on their diplomas.

On the wall

Francis Arthur Bond; Vietnam Wall; Vietnam Veterans Memorial