Sandra and I are going to North Adams for the night. We will stay at The Porches at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) and see Sweet Honey in the Rock. North Adams is about 100 miles away, in the northwestern corner of the state. It may take us two-and-a-half hours on the two-lane roads. We'll go through many small towns, such as Florida, and then around the hairpin turn on Route 2 into the city.

Sandra's parents will take care of Marley, which he won't mind a bit. Last night, though, he hurt his foot and been less than enthusiastic this morning. These things tend to take care of themselves, but we'll take him to the vet on Monday if he's not better.

I may work from home for a bit this morning. Sandra has a dentist appointment and we plan to be on our way by 11:00 or so. Yesterday I finished a script (a small program) that converted a document in just the way that I wanted, only to discover that my solution worked with Firefox, but not Internet Explorer. The solution is tantalizingly close. We need to have something working by Tuesday of next week.

The Eastern Graphic is a weekly newspaper that serves the eastern end of Prince Edward Island. There's an ad in this week's classified section that says, and I am not making this up, "Phone disconnected? This is your lucky day. Call now to get reconnected at the cheapest price.... Call Easy Reconnect at 1-877-xxx-xxxx." That's right up there with a solar-powered night light.

Lori's on her way to Los Angeles today. We had a nice email exchange the other day, mostly about options for her to get wireless Internet connectivity. She can't get DSL in her new apartment and the TV signal is from satellite, not cable. She'd rather not have to get a landline just for dial-up access. (She uses her cell phone as her only phone.) In many cases we can deal with the big things, such as moving across the country or changing jobs, only to find that the things we expect to be easy, such as Internet access, are the things that give us the most trouble.

Just because it's got green on it doesn't mean that it has anything to do with St. Patrick's Day.

Shortly after 6:00 last night I sent the fourth book off to the editorial staff. We don't have time for anything more than the most cursory review. The book may bring some value to some customer someplace. I hope.

Yesterday was my first 10-hour day at work for this job. Ten-hour days used to be the norm.

Maybe he's been reading my expressions, but yesterday my manager reassured me that my job was going to continue at least until May. There's still talk about permanent positions opening up. I've found that I've made good contributions in some areas. People have been coming to me for help with their problems with some of our software products. It's satisfying to be able to provide answers. The things that have gone well have gone very well; the things that haven't haven't.

The junk email in the past couple of days included a few intriguing subject lines.

Your kid may be an honors student, but you're still an idiot.
The news is good on the economy topcoat
This is the last day of your new life.

The content of the messages, of course, was as you'd expect.

This has been kicking around the 'net for a few days. I'd hope to have some clever commentary by now. There are times, though, when cleverness needs to step back with hat in hand and acknowledge grandeur. (Although the site is in Norwegian, the video clips transcend language.) Lead us to greatness, Norwegia.

G'bye, Dick Radatz, aka The Monster.

March 16th is Saint Urho's Day

So, it pretty much comes down to today. My last book needs to be ready for edits by EOB (end of business) today, with a possible extension to tomorrow morning if my groveling is good enough.

It's only every two or three months that I sleep until the alarm clock goes off. When I was in college, though, I needed to put the alarm clock across the room to make sure that I got up for my early classes. Even that wasn't enough, sometimes. I could have used one of these.

Guys (and those who think like them) around the world are saying, "I've got to get one of these." I mean, how can you not want to visit a web site that has a Comptence page? The compnay is a Finland subsidiary of John Deere. (Don't forget your Jack-Cessories.) Let's see, guys, wildnerness, vodka, big machine that walks through the woods. What could go wrong?

The National Weather Service reports that this winter has been the 3rd snowiest in Worcester since good records have been kept, starting in 1892:

1. 132.9 in 1995-96
2. 120.1 in 1992-93
3. 109.2 in 2004-05
4. 104.3 in 1960-61
5. 100.2 in 1993-94

We have a chance at making it to second place. There's talk of snow on Sunday and it's certainly been known to snow throughout April and into May.

When I was kid and someone complained of some ailments (a cold, upset stomach, etc.), the standard response was, "Nothing trivial, I hope."

I worked hard yesterday and got three of my four books to the next milestone, a place I'd hoped to reach days and perhaps even weeks ago. The fourth book is still in trouble.

Woody and Marian are getting their suitcase out today so that they can start packing. They plan to leave for the Island next Monday.

When I first saw this, I thought that it would be great for teachers and parents. But, then, I thought of some of the business meetings that I've endured (and, on occasion, led). And, of course, some of us have to drive in and around Boston. It should be noted that most of the laws of physics are left outside the door to the offices of Future Horizons, except for those that allow the tongue to be planted in one's cheek.

Our kids are too busy with sports, music, social events, and, oh, yeah, school. So, how do we help them bring their busy schedules under control? With one of these? Sure. Or, you could leave your child in the care of Microsoft.

We can't overlook the goings-on in Florida, where the Red Sox were visited by the Fab Five.

In addition to this being the Ides of March, a bad day for Caesar, it also marks the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II (in the February revolution). The Russian word tsar is derived from Caesar. The tsars saw Russia as the third Rome (Constantinople being the second).

Today, 3/14, is Pi Day, with celebrations all around. Not this Pi, though. This one.

Although the project's final deadline is the 25th, I really have to have my work completed by Wednesday of this week so others can do their part. It may be too late to do a great job, but good work is still within reach.

I don't know which is creepier - this place or the fact that I would be eligible. Of course, I did receive a letter this past week, inviting me to be considered for possible appearance in the National Register’s Who’s Who in Executives and Professionals. Who's Who? It's more like What's That?

On your journey toward enlightenment or reconciliation with the forces of the beyond, don't forget to bring a snack.

The snowstorm went on into the evening, leaving us with about a foot all told. It looks as though we have as much snow on the ground as we've had all season. Scott took the lead in shoveling us out this morning. (I'd done the driveway and back yard with the snowblower yesterday afternoon.) Sandra cleared the path to the wood pile and I took care of other odds and ends, including the path to the neighbor's house. Our neighbor has MS. We'd like to think that they can use the path to get the wheelchair out to the road. Mostly, though, the paper deliverers use it to go from our driveway to the neighbor's house.

Yesterday morning we went to Matt's basketball game. They won by a point in a very well-played game. These kids, in the 7th and 8th grades, have skills that match or exceed what I saw in varsity teams when I was in high school. They pass well, play great defense, and move smartly. Matt's got great stuff, on and off the court. After the game, he ran over and hugged us, thanking us for coming to the game.

Mike sponsored Matt's team. It was quite a challenge to fit Hakkarainen Contracting on the front of a kid's t-shirt.

Scott, Val, and Russell stayed overnight. We got to know Russell a bit. What a serene baby. He's just under nine months. Everyone got to hold him for quite a while. With my beard, glasses, and colorful pens in my pocket, he found plenty of things to hold his interest when it was my turn.

We again took the back roads to my father's house. Folks along this road were using all kinds of contraptions to clear away the snow. It would be generous to call some of them machines. They looked like creatures in the green room for War of the Worlds. Nevertheless, the snow was cleared away and people seemed to be enjoying the strong March sunshine.

It's snowing just lightly now, but the NWS assures us that heavy wet snow is crossing the Connecticut border. We hope to get to Matt's basketball game this morning.

Another hard week. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday, giving me a chance to talk about some things. This is getting old.

Today's interesting job possibility from the automated searches for a technical writing job: Supervisor, Airline Reservations. Responsibilities include "management of international and domestic group reservations and air fare negotiation...." I do have a couple of real leads to pursue this weekend.

The collapse of Canadian airline Jetsgo will have little effect on PEI. There was just one flight a week from and to Toronto. This summer, Northwest will fly from Detroit to Charlottetown.

Er, um, ah, garage jumping? Darwin, paging Charles Darwin. Of course, if you outlaw stupidity, only outlaws will be stupid.

As Jennie and Adam train to run a marathon to benefit stroke research, their preparations, and the life surrounding them, are chronicled in the 804.67200 kilometer blog.

We slept in this morning. Well, sort of. Marley is used to having me up by 5:00. I guess that he was concerned and came into our room to make sure that we were OK. Anyone need a 90-pound, cold-nosed alarm clock? It's one of a kind.

Two weeks from today, our product goes to manufacturing, meaning that the software and documentation is done and is ready to be put onto CDs for shipment to customers. Three of my four books are in good shape and one is in deep trouble. Quite often we use a green, yellow, or red coding for project status. Green means everything is going as planned. A yellow project has problems, but the team has a plan to recover. Red means that we're off schedule and don't know how we'll get back. I hope to bring this fourth book from red to yellow today.

Grumble, grumble. I've spent more than a few hours this week wrestling with problems that ought not exist. One had to do with hyperlinks in FrameMaker files. The other involved the stream editor sed. I need to make one change to more than a 1000 files. This works fine on Linux and UNIX, but fails on Windows.

Even though he's lost half of his net worth in the past few years, Bill Gates is still the richest person in the world. On a related note, Microsoft's purchase of Groove Networks has the potential of being a very big deal. Groove has a great concept for collaboration, but hadn't been able to achieve takeoff velocity on its own. It's also very interesting that Microsoft will keep the Groove office and employees in Massachusetts. Microsoft typically brings its development teams to the Redmond campus. One analyst, however, said, "Groove plugs a hole that Microsoft has never built into its software..."

It's going to snow again today and tomorrow, perhaps even in to Sunday. One way to spend time stuck indoors is look at pictures of cats watching images of cats.

[Editor's note: email subscribers may receive between zero and three copies of today's post. The blogging software is behaving in unexpected ways today.]

We're expecting a full house this weekend. Barbara and Scott, Val, & Russell will stay here Saturday night. Sandra's parents are planning to go back to Prince Edward Island in a week and a half. SV&R returned from Brazil last Sunday, where Russell was christened and Val's brother was married. We need a chart on the wall to keep track of who's going where for how long.

Tuesday night's storm moved on to the Maritimes with a lot of wind. On Saturday, we're expecting another storm. Our guests will encounter a sloppy mixture of rain to freezing rain to snow as they travel from the Cape. Average snowfall for a season in Worcester is around 60 inches. I can't locate the latest seasonal totals but seem to recall that we're upwards of 90. The record is 125, so we have a ways to go on that.

It's official. Worcester's new baseball team is called the Worcester Tornadoes. Their web site is under construction. Rich Gedman, Worcester native and former Red Sox catcher, is the manager.

Our first cell phone was one of the bag phones. It was bulky to carry and clumsy to use, best suited for the car. Adam used it for a while as well. The reception was pretty good. I think our calling plan gave us 30 minutes a month. This morning's Wall Street Journal reports on new lines of cell phones targeting the under-13 crowd with phone models such Barbie, Hello, Kitty, and Firefly. The Firefly lets the child call Mom or Dad by pressing a single button. I wonder if they'll make a special model for Massachusetts.

It's difficult to get a good measurement of the snowfall because the wind has caused so much drifting. I'll say that it's about half a foot, but there's a two-foot drift blocking the side door.. Mike's been by with the plow already. The schools in our town have a two-hour delay. (The kids are not looking forward to more snow days. If they lose any more days to snow, they'll have to make up the time with Saturday classes or a shorter April vacation.) We postponed last night's trip to the Phillipston Conservation Commission for two weeks.

It's the wind, though, and the cold that makes it interesting. The temperature is just below zero. When we have a strong northwest wind, we get a downdraft in the stove. The downstairs filled with smoke briefly, but I was able to get enough windows open to air the place out before the smoke detectors went off. Now the downstairs is colder than it was before I started the fire. Once the fire gets going and the stove pipe gets hot, the smoke will flow in the proper direction.

It's a little discouraging to realize that the World Database of Happiness can fit in a Microsoft Access database. For those of you familiar with Access, you know that:

a) It isn't very big.
b) Only one person at a time can add to it.
c) It's easily corrupted

So, in this ever-changing world, we can take comfort that some things are just what they say they are: chicken (PDF document).

Our niece, Lori, has been keeping a journal of her life and times as she makes the move from New York to Los Angeles. She's done some good, fresh, and sharp writing.

We know that it's just spring training. We know that most of the name players sat this one out. Nevertheless, it would have been nice for the Red Sox to beat the Yankees. They didn't.

Last week, Bill Lee was on local TV, promoting his new book. He said that he had watched the Red Sox-Yankee series in Hawaii last fall. After the 7th game, he met up with some Yankee fans. "I hear that Steinbrenner is moving your team to the Phillipines," he said. "Yead, he's going to call them the Manila Folders."

We're scheduled to make a presentation to the Phillipston Conservation Commission this evening regarding the upgrade of our septic system at the camp. Because we're close to water that eventually feeds into the Boston water supply, we had to get state approval, as well as the approval of two town departments. We're as ready as we can be, but the weather may force a postponement. The NWS has issued a winter storm warning - 6-10 inches of snow, high winds, plunging temperatures, and ice. "This high wind watch has been issued due to the potential for
sustained winds or frequent wind gusts to hurricane force." Right now, it's a balmy 40 with a bit of light drizzle.

Today's entry in the "What were they thinking?" Dept. - In late January, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute appointed Bennett Lebow, the CEO of a tobacco company to its board of directors. The CEO resigned yesterday because he thought that his presence on the board might be a "distraction." More here.

Sandra's parents rode with us to the going-away party for niece Lori. On the way there, we made a stop in Wrentham for shoes and coffee cups. It was my first visit to John and Suanne's, a fine house from the early 20th century. Their lot extends into a quiet wooded grove in back.

Everyone had a chance to ask Lori pretty much the same questions - When are you leaving? What airline are you flying? What kind of car will you buy? What's your apartment like? What are your job prospects. She answered each person with grace, as though it was the first time she'd heard the question.

After I took my turn asking the questions, she and I talked a bit about job searches and wireless networking. She is also maintaining a blog to track the activities related to her move.

As blogging continues to gain in popularity, bloggers are increasingly at risk when they write about their work or when their writings online appear to conflict with their day jobs. Some companies do encourage their employees to maintain blogs on their own web sites, but the focus of those blogs tends to be narrowly technical.

Sometimes, when my thoughts lack stamina (I have a new coffee cup this morning, by the way.), I take a look at the Astronomy Picture of the Day web site. Yesterday's was particularly spectacular.

On our way to my father's house yesterday afternoon, we saw sap buckets hanging on the sides of the sugar maples. It was a good day for collecting sap. The temperature had been below freezing overnight and then up into the low 40s during the day. Some of the larger farms, particularly in Vermont, have elaborate systems of tubing that bring the sap down the hills to the sap house. This was a small operation, a few buckets on a few trees.

My father is doing pretty well. He's without pain most of the time, but complains that his back is not very strong. Nevertheless, when we arrived, he was backing the Jeep into the garage in preparation for the snow storms that may come this week.

Sandra had a question about knots. My father has a World War II-era book about basic seamanship that includes some pages of illustrations about knots. The book provided the information they needed. My father has other, even older reference books, on metallurgy and welding, notably, books that he picked up in trade school and in his early years as a welder. Both Sandra and I write technical reference material. Our documents, though, are ephemeral. The goal in our business is to replace the old with the new as quickly as possible, to put very little into print because anything that's in print is regarded as out of date. On the other end of the scale, my father finds technical answers in books that are 60 and 70 years old.

My automated search for a technical writing job brought me a listing for an Animal Facility Manage - "this position oversees the husbandry, health and well-being of laboratory animals. "

Today we'll attend a going-away party for our niece, Lori. She is moving to Los Angeles later this month. Lori is the daughter of Sandra's brother, John.

OK, so I start a web search for the lyrics to Happy Trails, figuring that would be a nice sendoff for Lori. I found it here (Caution, all of the links in this paragraph play music.) I found it on the Kids' Pages at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences web site, part of the National Institutes of Health. I started looking around the site and found lyrics for a bunch of other songs, such as Louie, Louie, YMCA, and that perennial kids' favorite, The Ballad of the Green Beret. Overall, it is a great resource for lyrics of songs that are ingrained in the popular culture. Without Google, however, I never would have found it. A site on environmental health sciences just isn't a place I'd look for song lyrics. "The Sing-Along pages are included," says the authorization page, "because sing-along activities are particularly useful for motivating young children to learn to read and to improve their reading skills."

As we've all recognized for quite a while, my current job is quite different from my previous one. Some of the differences are good (shorter commute, shorter hours), some not so good (narrower scope, less opportunity to influence an organization), and some just different. It was not uncommon for me to spend half of my work week in meetings and conference calls. Quite often, I would have follow-up discussions with folks in the western time zones as I drove home. Now, I have three meetings that typically total no more than two hours per week. There are others at work who appear to be keeping the pace that I used to keep. On more than a few occasions, guys have been talking on their cell phones while in the men's room. Next time you're having a phone conversation with someone who's on a cell phone, be grateful for what you don't know.

Working at that pace would be even more challenging in Nepal.

The other day, I listened to music from the Monterey Pop Festival box set. Some of the music is heartbreakingly good, notably Otis Redding. Other stuff has drifted into deserved obscurity. There were breakout performances for Janis Joplin, Hugh Masekela, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix. (Jimi does a cover of the Troggs semi-hit Wild Thing, one of the very few rock songs to feature an ocarina solo.)

This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal, pointing out the challenges associated with looking for a new job within a company. Because one is expect to have mastered the business, the article notes, one should prepare more for an in-house move than for an external one. Looking back, I can see lots of things that I could have done differently (better).

We call today John Phillip Souza Day. March 4th. ... March forth? ... It's a pun....

From the Dept. of Alternate Power Sources: Hand-powered iPod Shuffle and solar-powered trash compactor.

Both morning and evening commutes are in daylight. In many years this would be an indicator of spring. Instead, the weather forecasters are saying "early March 2005 will continue to feel like middle January...colder than normal temperatures and increasing chances for accumulating snows.

Even on my most difficult days at work, I stop to remember how easy and safe it all is. We owe a deep debt to those who put themselves in harm's way on our behalf.

Paraphrasing Paul in Romans 7, that which I should not do, I do; that which I should do, I do not. It's one thing to make mistakes or do things incorrectly. That happens, we fix the thing, and we move on. Sometimes, though, we disappoint people who really deserve better from us. The incidents, and I won't go into detail, were small, but telling. It's another day today, a chance to do better.

There's a bit o' brouhaha around Worcester. Dianne Williamson, a columnist for the Worcester Telegram, reports that owners have selected a name for the new baseball team - the Worcester Tornadoes. The speculation was fueled by the registration of the domain name worcestertornadoes.com and worcestertornados.com. (The sources I checked said that, while -does is preferred, -dos also acceptable as the plural form.) The 1953 Worcester Tornado is considered by many to be the greatest natural disaster to hit the region in recorded times.

With Photoshop, botox, and celebrity trial re-enactments, it's rare that we encounter something that is what it claims to be. The Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything is one of those things.

My job searches that are running in the background continue to be interesting. On Monday I received a call from an agency regarding a management position. After a bit of discussion, the recruiter set up a telephone interview for this afternoon. I asked the pay range for the position. I said a number. The recruiter said a number. The company's number was about 40% lower than my number. We concluded, with no ill will, that it wouldn't be practical to have the interview. Too bad. I had some new ideas to try in my interviews.

This morning's email, again looking for a technical documentation mangement position, suggests a senior secretary job in Rancho Cordova, California.

For our summer vacation last year, Sandra and I bought a jigsaw puzzle. We have a table at the camp that's well suited for such puzzle. Last year's selection, however, brought no joy. The pieces were cut in a way that they appeared as though they could fit in several different places. After a few frustrating evenings, we added the puzzle to the box of kindling for the wood stove. We probably could have used Glyphsaw Puzzle, brought to us by the folks at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). A division of Xerox, PARC has developed many of the key concepts and components that we associate with computing and networks.

I stumbled toward the end of the work day yesterday. For those of you who care about such things, I was using FrameScript to extract section heads from a FrameMaker document. When I wrote the section heads to a file, they kept showing up out of sequence. I spent at least an hour at day's end, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. Although I still don't completely understand why it works, if I scan the text flow, rather than the document, the section heads appear in the proper order.

In like a lion, out like a lamb. Or....

We didn't get nearly the snow that was predicted. I measured a bit more than five inches. After breakfast, I'll get the snow blower going, clean the driveway and yard, and go to work.

A new Dilbert calendar appeared in the break room yesterday. Ed Yourdon's Inverse Dilbert Correlation Factor says that the morale of an organization is inversely proportional to the number of Dilbert cartoons posted in the office area. It's too early to say if this is a harbinger of difficult times, but it's worth watching.

For some, this may seem strange and a bit unsettling. For others, it may be a ray of hope. One friend, for example, has had her depression treated successfully with ECT, so this may be a more controlled method for delivering relief.

In case your spiritual side is in need of development, a local Unitarian-Universalist church is having a discussion on BioSafety Level 4 Laboratories next week. I've been affiliated with the UU church for nearly 50 years, back when they were just one U. I'm very fond of the denomination and wouldn't want them to change. But they certainly can make you roll your eyes every once in a while.

We're looking at a good bit of snow tonight and tomorrow, a foot or more, with a high water content. Sandra and I will bring our laptops home this evening in the expectation that we'll work from home tomorrow.

Today is Marley's Gotcha Day. We picked him at a vet's office eight years ago, the day before he was scheduled to be, um, well, you know. He'd been found walking on the side of the road in a town west of here. He was first taken to a shelter, but that shelter went out of business. The vet took in some of the dogs and placed an ad in the paper. We saw the ad for a couple of weeks before we made up our minds. We drove out to see him, took him for a walk to get acquainted, and brought him home. He thanked us by eating a little plastic wastebasket that I kept in the back of my car. Well, he didn't really eat it. He chewed it to pieces until it was unrecognizble. We wondered what we'd done.

My mother lived with us at the time. A lot of his care would fall to her. She'd never had a dog. Nevertheless, before long, she had trained him to wait for his dinner until she gave him the command to eat. Every afternoon she made a salad for our dinner. Marley enjoyed the broccoli stalks, tomato tops, and bits of carrot trimmed in preparation. They became good friends.

We also celebrate Marley's birthday today. He's not always at his best around other dogs, so we won't be having a party. Because he was a stray, we don't know his exact birthdate. When we brought him for his first physical, our vet estimated that Marley was a year old. So, we've set his birthday at February 29, 1996.

News on the business wire this morning is that Federated Department Stores is buying May Department Stores. It could mean the passing of another store chain, Filene's. A few years ago, Federated bought Jordan Marsh, another Boston institution. We're still grieving over the changes at Spag's.

I traveled quite a bit in my previous job. Our Cupertino office was a frequent destination, but I visited all but one of the offices (Orange County CA) in the U.S. and Canada. As with the rest of my work there, I did some good work and not so good work. I met many good people who are still my friends today. For most of the time that I was with the company, I was an American Airlines Gold member; one year I was Platinum. The elite status helped a lot when traveling with family. We could get through check-in lines much faster and have access to resources at the airline to help with changes in schedule. This was particularly handy when Sandra, my mother, and I were coming home, sick, from a vacation in the UK. Similarly when I flew with my father to his brother's funeral in St. Louis, we had to make several changes to get around a big snowstorm in the midwest. And, sure, the upgrades were nice. Today my Gold status expires. Also, most of the company offices that I visited have since closed.

For the Eats, Shoots & Leaves file, the price list at a local car wash includes:

SUV,s & trucks $1.00 extra

Recently we were talking with a friend who is using a MIDI sequencer as he composes music on his computer. There are others who are taking a more academic approach.

Even though I'm comfortable at my current job and know that my position is funded for a couple more months, I keep an eye on the job market. I have a number of automated searches running that look for various combinations of keywords: technical writer, documentation manager, etc.

This morning, one of the searches found an administrator/technical writer job. Requirements include good technical writing and process mapping capabilities. The person would be developing and maintaining procedures in a software quality assurrance team. Oh, and by the way, the person would also order office supplies.

Another job that was suggested by one of the searches is that of movie extra. "All looks needed." What's the phrase, a great face for radio?

The signals from the dog satellite are particularly strong this morning. Marley is pacing the floor, keening. When I let him out, he walks out to the back yard, turns around, and comes back in.

The weather forecasters are still calling for a big something on Monday and into Tuesday. New England will see a continuum of heavy rain along the south and southeast coasts changing to heavy snows inland. With systems such as these, there's no typical behavior to expect. Nor'easters behave in one way. Alberta Clippers behave in another. In this case, however, a change in either distance from the coast or even 100 feet in elevation can make a big difference in the amount of snow vs. rain.

News from north of the border is that Canada won't participate in the missile defense (defence) program. The U.S., in response, says, fine, we'll just shoot over your heads. The U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, is a sort of an acquaintance. We used to live in the same town when he was a state representative (like an MLA). I was a reporter and talked with him frequently. His father, who owned a local car dealership, was a real character and worked tirelessly on behalf of the town. Paul later went on to be state senator, lieutenant governor, governor, and then ambassador. This is probably my closest connection to the famous, although one time I did stand next to Elton John in the Boston Tower Records store.

As I've mentioned before, I often listen to the radio during the night. The local NPR station broadcasts the BBC World Service. The BBC's Washington correspondent, Rob Watson, is returning to England after many years of reporting from the States. Last week he wrote a piece, rebroadcast this morning, in which he shared his impressions of America and its people. He called it a love letter. It's reminiscent of Alistair Cooke's Letter from America series.

We have another month of development work for our current project. Already some people are looking ahead to the next project, due for release late in this year. I had a brief email exchange with my manager, indicating that I'd be willing to work on whatever he thinks would be useful. If there was a choice, however, I'd like to spend time developing some automation tools. There are a number of repetitive tasks that could be simplified. Funding for my position runs through the middle of May. There's talk that permanent positions may be opening up, but the company hasn't posted any official openings yet.

Just a few inches of snow fell overnight, barely enough for a plow. The weather forecasters are huddling around their charts and discussing the possibility of a big storm in the Northeast early next week. It's another of those complex scenarios that could bring us a major snowstorm or a garbled mess of snow, ice, rain, wind, fish, frogs, and other things falling from the sky.

Following up on yesterday's discussion regarding sources of energy for portable devices, we find that the clever folks at the Indian Institute of Technology have come up with a device that can charge a cell phone with wind power. It raises the question, of course, would the wind from a telephone conversation be sufficient to power the cell phone? It's not quite perpetual motion, but it's getting there.

Happy Birthday, Lynn.

Batteries fade over time, and not a long time at that. The battery on this laptop holds a charge for just under two hours; when new, it kept the laptop running for three-and-a-half hours. The iPod battery that rocked on for more than eight hours now just makes it to seven. Both are less than a year old. Freeplay, a South African company, has just gone public on the London Stock Exchange with a line of products that can charge batteries with wind-up and foot power. They also make a multi-source, multi-band radio.

I've been wearing glasses since I was five. The only time that I was without them for a extended time came as the result of a walk through the woods after dark. (It looked like a shortcut on the way in to the woods.) A stray branch knocked my glasses off and in the dark, thick underbrush, I couldn't find them. In those days, it took a week to get a pair of glasses, so I spent the time in a Mr. Magoo blur. If only I had these, I'd have been all set.

My father has a 1971 phone book on his kitchen counter. You never know when you'll need to look up the phone number that someone had nearly 35 years ago. That was two area codes ago for him. He's had the same phone number since the late 50s, back when telephone exchanges were in common use.

The eastern sky was bright red at sunrise. We're expecting more snow, although the Cape will get hit the hardest again.

It's rare for our house to be completely dark. The camp is dark, PEI darker still. We have a street light just outside our window. Inside the house, there are the lights left on intentionally, the electric candle in the window, an evolution of the Christmas lights, a light of hope, and the stove light on for the early risers. Then, there are the dots of light, from the printer, the power strip, the telephone answering machine, the VCR that we hope isn't flashing 12:00. And this morning we have the moon, the nearly full snow moon, brightening up the whitened countryside.

In his 1989 innaugural address, President George H. W. Bush used the "thousand points of light" as his expression of how the service spirit would manifest itself in the country. Added to his lexicon by speechwriter Peggy Noonan in the mid-80s, the phrase has been employed by many different people.

I know that, if it wasn't for Matt, I wouldn't have known to care that Blink-182 is going on indefinite hiatus. (Indefinite Hiatus, by the way, would be a good name for a rock band. ) Blink-182 was one of Matt's favorite bands. I haven't had a chance yet to talk with him about the news. I suspect that it's no big deal. He'd moved on already.

A friend has a three-year-old yellow Lab named Thompson. Thompson is an, um, dropout of assistance dog school. He's great in all settings except when another dog is around. Then he needs to be the alpha dog. That's not acceptable behavior for a dog who is leading someone across a street. With people he's wonderful. Our friend's partner takes Thompson to the library and to school, where children read to him. Children are much more at ease when they're reading to him than when they're reading to adults or to their peers. At the end of the day, Thompson comes home very tired. It's a lot of work to pay attention well.

I received a call from an employment agency yesterday. The job that we discussed wasn't a great one (more than an hour's drive for 2-6 month contract), but it's good to get unsolicted calls.

How great is this?! For the second time in a week, I've received email informing me that I've won the a lottery. This time, it's the Royal Spainish Lottery.

Not only do spammers use our email addresses to send us all of the junk that you see. They also spoof return addresses, sometimes using legitimate addresses, such as yours and mine. This morning, for example, I received a mail message stating that so-and-so would be out of the office this week, but that I could contact thus-and-such if I had any questions. I'd not sent anything to so-and-so and cetainly not anything regarding "We deliver satisfcation!"

Imagine what it would take to change our calendar system. George Washington was born on 11 February 1732, under the Julian calendar. When he was a young man, in 1752, England and its colonies switched to the more accurate Gregorian calendar. The discrepancy between the two calendars at that time was 11 days. So, his birthday became 22 February. For a similar reason, the October Revolution, when the Russians established a communist state, is observed in November. The February Revolution that overthrew the tsar took place in March. Russia didn't relinquish the use of the Julian calendar until 1918.

Each time I see the adverts for Royal Caribbean cruise lines on TV, I wonder if these folks realize that this is the guy who is singing their jingle.

We have a little light snow falling, just enough to cover the cars and walks and decks that were cleaned off yesterday. Some friends are returning from a vacation in Central America. We wouldn't want them to think that we've been having springtime without them.

We picked up a few inches of snow during the overnight, enough to make everything look clean and wintry again. A squirrel is digging through the snow to get at the seed buried below. It was snowing lightly, but now a burst of heavily snow has come through. That's the forecast for the day. We're expecting 6-7", enough for Mike to plow and maybe even enough for the snowblower.

My father is looking forward to his visits with his doctor at the VA so he can talk about sailing. He learned during hs last visit that his doctor has a sailboat. It was a model he'd heard of, but didn't know well. His book of American boats, purchased in 1963, didn't have an entry for it. (A former boss of mine is an engineering manager at Amazon.com. I should send him a note, asking if he can explain why a search for a book about American Sailboats turns up American Psycho as the second choice.)

I learned something else yesterday. My grandfather didn't die of lung problems, as I'd thought, but from a stroke. Adam and Jennie are planning to run a marathon this summer as a fund-raiser for stroke research. They sent a letter to my father, who, in turn, is planning to dedicate his contribution to his father. My grandfather had fallen in the driveway and hit his head. He had one stroke early during his hospital stay and then a second fatal one a couple of days later.

So, I had things to think about when, as Sandra, Marley, and I walked in to the camp, I slipped on the ice on the road. I hit the back of my head and few other parts. (Doesn't gravity seem to be stronger these days?) The bump on the head seems to have done neither harm nor good. Today I'm just sore. Some muscles were stretched in lengths and directions out of the ordinary. Because of a new medication, I can't take Vitamin I (ibuprofen), but Tylenol seems to be working ok.

Sandra and I had a very nice afternoon, a chance to be unhurried and just pay attention to what the other was saying. We had the visit with my father, the walk to the camp where the wind had blown the ice clear of snow, a ride in the car where we could talk about Thoreau, a trip to a shopping mall where I picked up a 7-port USB hub and a wireless card for an old computer onto which I plan to install Linux, and a delightful early supper at a new Panera Bread that's opened in Leominster. The nerdy crowd is speaking fondly of Panera Bread because the chain is providing free wireless Internet access.

It's been said that suicide is the ultimate temper tantrum, our last and loudest scream at the world. G'bye Dr. Thompson. (There's some uncertainty about his 'doctorate'. Some sources say he has a Ph. D. in journalism or maybe sociology from an unnamed university. Others claim that his doctorate is from a mail-order church.) Thompson was one of the first people to recognize the strength of Jimmy Carter's campaign. He dreamed of becoming governor of American Samoa and, instead, became a cartoon character, Uncle Duke. We need folks like him to shout to us from the far edge of the wilderness.

We're certainly blessed with a wonderful family. There were 16 of us at dinner last night, although Cassandra travels with her own meals. We had a room by ourselves and could move around easily to visit. Lily brought coloring materials, so she and Tess had fun bringing color to pictures of princesses and castles. Dinner took close to three hours, pushing us past the closing time of the skating rink. No one seemed terribly upset. We were tired and full and happy and ready to go home. Even though the game of pick-up-sticks ended with some hurt feelings among the younger set, everyone said that the evening was good.

Just before we went out to dinner, we received a call from our dear friends, Dan and Gay. Their calls and visits are always tonics for our souls. We met them nearly when we lived in Hudson. They were graduate students at BU School of Theology and worked as associate pastors at the Methodist church we attended. After completing their studies, they returned to Illinois, where they served a succession of churches, as is the Methodist tradition. They adopted four (!) children. One of the children, KC, died suddenly in 1999 of a undetected heart ailment; it was the summer before he was to start college. Currently Dan and Gay are in Champaign, where she is a chaplain at a youth shelter and he is music minister at a local church.

And just before the phone call, BPF (our bi-polar friend) stopped by to see Sandra's parents. She wanted them to come see her newly-painted mud room. It was her second visit of the day. On the first visit, she brought box of Valentine chocolates with some of the chocolates gone. The metal box is heart-shaped with a picture of Elvis on it.

While we're shoveling a half foot of snow, the full squad reports to Red Sox spring training tomorrow.

It looks like the hockey season is really not going to happen, for sure, definitely. Even though the games have been canceled, that doesn't mean that all of the traditions must vanish.

Jennie's birthday was this past week. Lynn's is this coming week. To celebrate, this evening we're going out to dinner with their families at Old Sturbridge Village. After dinner, we can see the village. The pond is open for ice skating, so about half of us will bring our skates.

Old Sturbridge Village is a replica of an 1830s New England village. providing visitors with an opportunity to experience life in the early 19th century. A few years ago, one of Sandra's co-workers, who had emigrated to here from Ukraine, returned from the village, nearly in tears. "It's just like how we live," she said.

"We live in our expectations, not our experience."

If you had $2.5 trillion, what would you spend it on?

According to an email that I received this morning, I've won €1M in the Royal Spanish Lottery. There might be something suspect about this, so I'll wait before placing my order for my new car.

The week's end has arrived none too soon. Sandra and I will carve out some time for ourselves in this long weekend, a chance to talk and regroup. Yesterday afternoon, when there was a lull in what's become a frenetic pace at work, I started noticing little slip-ups of mine - a missed assignment, a stumble in a conversation. It will be good to find a few moments of quiet.

A few years back, I achieved what I thought was a great insight. I realized that I'd become very self-focused, my world view always circling back around to me. I knew I needed to change. I met up with a friend and discussed my revelation and resolution. We had a good 15 minute talk. It wasn't until later in the day that I realized that I hadn't asked the other person a single question.

Hockey fans, particularly our anguished friends to the north, can blame the Red Sox. The last time a hockey season was canceled, the Red Sox had just won a world championship.

Late yesterday afternoon our bipolar friend visited with Sandra's parents and stayed for two hours. She is adamant that she is not sick, that her problems can be traced to her (almost ex-) husband. Most of us resist treatment for whatever ailment we have, be it a persistent shoulder ache, fading vision, or that bit of blood that shows up when we floss. We see very clearly what the other person needs to do and very dimly what's needed for us. In cases of mental illness, however, the illness often robs the person of the ability to know what's needed or the ability to act on that knowledge.

I've started using del.icio.us, although I can't yet give a succinct definition of what it is or why it's useful. It's something about social bookmarks. Stay tuned.

Microsoft explains how to be cool with teenagers: A parent's primer to computer slang.

Marley was sitting quietly with Sandra's folks in their apartment yesterday. After a while, he got up, came back to our part of the house, and chewed up a pillow from the couch. It might be funny, except that Sandra has put a lot of work into re-covering our pillows. I wonder what's going on in that head of his.

The awards dinner last night was fun. We sat with Sandra's co-workers, a couple of whom were also receiving awards. The presenters pronounced Hakkarainen correctly one of two times. The meal was good and the entertainment was funny and of professional quality. Humor by and about technical writers, however, is something of an acquired taste.

The economy has improved quite a bit, but "Are you working?" is still the standard greeting. A few people made announcements regarding companies with job openings. On the way in to the dinner, I received a cell phone call from a recruiter regarding another job prospect. This morning I will send a couple of resumes and brush up on my 25 difficult questions

It's still an overwhelmingly white profession. About 60% are women. The median age of the attendees was in the upper 40s, somewhat higher than what I see around the office.

The meeting was held a hotel near where I used to work. It was the first time that I've driven those roads in many months and it stirred up all of the feelings that you might expect.

I learned that I needed to work 1040 hours to qualify for holiday pay. I have 1041. So, Monday, Presidents' Day in the U.S., is a paid holiday for me. I'm still not sure about taking the day off or not. Right now, I'm tired enough that a day off seems great. My work is also coming together (or at least has stopped flying apart). It would be nice to defer the day off until the release is complete.

We missed our chances to pick up Fawlty Towers and dogs playing poker paintings (but prints are available).

Belatedly, we send our birthday greetings to Canada's flag. Yesterday, National Flag Day, Canada celebrated the flag's 40th birthday.

Tonight we will attend a Society for Technical Communications dinner where Sandra will receive an award for a technical document that she wrote. Several of Sandra's co-workers will also attend. We'll also likely see colleagues from previous work lives as well. Amid the awkwardness that can intrude on social settings, we can steady ourselves by remembering that the purpose of the night is to recognize Sandra's good work.

Yesterday afternoon, I nearly broke the operating system on my work computer. It's a long and somewhat lame tale with a somewhat happy ending. I learned things to do, not to do, and to do better. Hint: back up your registry. Hint: if you don't want to get any real work done for an afternoon, delete the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.exe registry key.

I know how serious Repetitive Stress Injury and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome can be. I'm familiar with the burning pain in the wrists. All the same, the idea of spending sixty bucks for a program that tells me when I need to take a break is, um, well, let's just say that Thoreau saw it coming.

Another important thing that my grandmother knew, even though she didn't know it. Every afternoon, I'd get off of the school bus and go next door to my grandparents' house for coffee and pastries.

Although this article features something nice for a couple of very cute cats, the nerdity quotient is off the charts.

Happy Birthday, Jennie
Happy Birthday, Val
Happy Birthday, HSH

The inch of snow that fell yesterday evening is now a thin layer of slush that melts underfoot. The temperature is in the mid-30s, heading for 50. Normal high for mid-February is 34.

It's relatively rare that we get a normal day, a day where the high and low temperature hit the average. Usually, we're higher or lower, averaging out to what we call normal. Normal is an average that we rarely attain. Anyway, yesterday was pretty close to normal.

I don't even have to look out the window anymore. I can find out what the weather is like by looking at this site. I've not met the person who runs this site. His station is a mile and a half from home.

Not a day goes by when I don't say, I work hard, but this isn't hard work.

Resumes are mostly commonly submitted in Microsoft Word format. Some companies even require it. Word files can, however, contain hidden text, material that you deleted and comments that you'd like to keep hidden. There have been many instances, including from Microsoft itself, when hidden data was left in a Word document that was posted on the Web or distributed by email, leading to embarrassment and mirth. This product helps to ensure that you won't distribute a Word document that contains hidden data. Microsoft offers an Office add-in that helps you remove hidden data. I've found that saving as Rich Text Format works just fine. I also usually take a peek at the RTF file to make sure that there isn't any stray licensing information. This is important if, for example, one was to be updating one's resume at work. One wouldn't want the licensing information from work to be included in the resume that one sends to another employer.

I'm fortunate to have a group of readers who pay close attention to these notes, checking my facts, checking my words. Yesterday, C. asked if levitation was a Hakkarainen family trait. Yesterday I wrote that we record the kids' heights on a beam in our kitchen. I should have used the word post.

We had a good party for Michael Francis. (Note to self: a six-foot Subway party sub is too big, even for our large extended family.) Michael is a great kid, thoughtful, funny, interested, hard-working. We're having a great time watching him grow up. We have a beam in our kitchen where we've recorded kids' heights. Michael's is very close to, if not a bit ahead of, his father's height at that age.

Around the dinner table, we talked about the popularity of poker among high school students. Some kids are betting $100 in a game, a lot for a high school freshman. Michael doesn't play, but many of his friends do. This being Massachusetts, there was a bit of confusion until we all understood that we were talking about poker, the card game ("pokah") , and not the Polish dance ("polkah").

Matt gave me his new AIM screen name and I learned that he likes a few songs from the band G-Unit.

Theirs is a very busy family. Tess and Krista came for a short while and then were picked up by the mother of a friend to take them to another birthday party. Matt had a basketball game at 2:00, Joe at 4:00. We all know that this will only get worse over time. The children in a nuclear family become the cloud of probabilty circling around it.

In a follow-up email regarding my discussion of the taxes on my mother's estate, a friend related his similar experiences. It's about numbers on a page and it's about more. I don't know that I could have understood it at the time, but it would have been good to learn about money, relationships, and money and relationships when I was much younger. The teachers then kept saying, "This is important," but it's rare that it was. What has had a greater impact on my life - trigonometric functions and their inverses or knowing how money, and the lack of it, would shape my life. Money is certainly not the only or even the primary force in my life, but it would be foolish to ignore it.

We visited with my father on Saturday. What's a good gift for a 91-year-old? A new cart for hauling firewood, of course.

In case we ever need to find out the phone number that someone had in 1971 in north central Massachusetts, we're all set. A 1971 phone book is setting on my father's kitchen counter.

The travelers returned from PEI in good order. I won the 75¢ pool, my guess coming closest to their arrival time of 5:45PM. They reported that it was a good day for traveling, even though the Airline Route was still snow-covered. They talked with a woman at a gas staion in Brewer who reported that the highway was impassable the day before.

An aside: There's a Airline Road sign at the intersection of Route 9 and U.S. Route 1 near Calais. I've known Route 9 as the Airline Route, which I learned from the locals even before I joined this family of travelers. What fun is it if something has just one name.

The fares on the Maine Turnpike have gone up a bit. One of the best bargains on the trip is the Harbour Bridge in Saint John, New Brunswick. The toll is still a quarter and hasn't increased in at least 25 years.

There's been a good deal of discussion around our table about the sale of the Abby 3 on eBay. It looks to be a very good deal. The Abby 3 is replica of the Abegweit (Abby) 2, the ferry that crossed the Northumberland Strait before the Confederation Bridge was built in the late 90s. The Abby 2, BTW, was sold to a Houston company and renamed the Accrued Mariner. Last year, sadly, she headed east to Alang, India for scrapping, a fate that's befallen other ferries.

We've moved the furniture back to the quarto com nenhum nome. Sandra has readied the tables. All we need now are the people and the food.

Happy 15th Birthday, Michael Francis.

The Red Sox equipment van left for Florida yesterday afternoon as scheduled. Although the idea of baseball's return is exciting, I've not started to think deeply about the team yet - the starting rotation, new players, returning players, and the competition. Spring training is as much for the fans as it is for the players. The season starts in 50 days.

I've spent a bit of time this morning trying a few tricks with Perl. We've had a problem with invalid hyperlinks in our PDF documents. There are plenty of link checkers for HTML files, but none that I've found for PDF. So, I've been thinking that it might be fun to cobble something together. Perl is a very powerful and even elegant language. The syntax, however, is quite fussy. It's just different enough from shell scripts, batch files, and other scripting languages that, well, that I get messages such as, and I'm not making this up, "Useless use of time...".

We have a full weekend ahead. We need to put the furniture back in our room-without-a-name. We'll see my father this afternoon and pick up whatever groceries he needs. The travelers return from PEI late this afternoon. We'll have the traditional Saturday night hot dogs and beans in their honor. Tomorrow is the birthday of Michael Francis (15). We'll have a party here. Threaded through all of this are the usual assignments - bringing in wood, grocery shopping, paying the bills, reading the newspapers, taking a nap.

Don has been gone for two years.

A couple of years before he died, Don came down with blood poisoning. He was hospitalized and in a coma for several days. We thought we were going to lose him then. During his coma, he had a steak and eggs breakfast with the Source. (The Source made him buy.) They had long talks about everything.

"Am I going to to die?" Don asked.

"Do you want to?" the Source asked. Don came back to be with us for a while and he brought us that story.

There have been many links to this article in other blogs this morning: You There, at the Computer: Pay Attention. (Free registration at the NYT site may be required.)

There is a charming irony that Microsoft, the company that brought you Clippy, is conducting research on disruption in the work process. More about Attentional User Interfaces (AUIs) and other projects at Microsoft is here.

There's also a charming irony that I read this article and some related stuff while preparing myself to settle in for a day's work.

It doesn't matter how much wet snow snow we did or didn't get, how pretty it looks stuck to the branches on trees and bushes. There's no surer sign of spring: Both the Boston Globe and MetroWest Daily News report that the Red Sox equipment truck leaves this afternoon for spring training For Myers.

I bought a Pepsi with my lunch yesterday. Pepsi is running a promotion with Apple iTunes, giving away free songs for iPods and other stuff. On my first try, I won a free song. I don't win a lot of contests, but then I don't enter a lot of contests, either. The last time Apple gave me a free song, I chose Chuck Berry's You Can't Catch Me. So, now, I can get a free song. It's a variant on the Desert Island Disc theme: If I can get any song, what would it be? Ideas?

Whatever it is, it won't be this song that's already in my head for free, even if the lyrics differ from version to version.

On last night's news, a TV reporter, describing a happy ending to a story, said, "Good news comes in three words - home, safe, and sound."

Happy Anniiversary, Mike and Lynn.

We like to make fun of the New England weather forecasters. They're scientists but we often accord them the same bemused respect as we give that weird uncle who means well, tries hard, and spills soup on his shirt and your new carpet. This was a very tough forecast, one that started out with 10-20 inches of snow and is now rain with a couple inches of snow at the end. "There is very little chance that this storm will miss the region," said Tuesday's NWS report. It's very tricky to get the timing right with a storm coming from the west and a cold front coming from the northwest. The storm got here before the cold, so we got rain. This is a pattern that we often see in late winter and spring, one that can give us a good soaking or two feet of snow in May.

Sandra and I brought our laptops home, expecting to be snowed in. Now it looks another commute to another day in the office.

The DNS servers at our ISP are having trouble this morning, so it's slow going as I try to communicate with the outside world. DNS (Domain Name System) is an essential feature of networks, converting familiar network addresses such as queenlake.com to and from its numeric equivalent, 65.108.234.145.

Woody has been calling from the island every morning. Usually he calls around 7AM (8AM AST). Phone calls at that time of the day usually bring bad news, news of death or serious illness. It's good that the calls are bringing good news, but we all jump when the phone rings. (When a call comes in, all of the phones in the house ring. We have distinctive rings, basically an old-fashioned party line. One ring for the Hakkarainens, two for the MacGregors. When my mother lived here, she had three rings.)

This morning's entry for the Almost a Good Idea Dept. is here. Even the conservatives are squeamish.

The time has come to replace the 25-year-old carpet in the room that we don't have a good name for. When the MacGregors owned the house, they used the room as a living room. For 20 years we used it as our bedroom. Now we use it for Sandra's sewing projects and for large family dinners. We have a couple of long tables and can seat 20 if everyone is friendly. The new carpet comes on Friday and we'll have a birthday party here on Sunday.

We have a couple pendulum clocks from my grandfather, by way of my father. One is a grandmother's clock in the room that's getting the new carpet. The clock keeps good time. Because our old floors are uneven and sometimes unsteady, we had to screw the clock to a vertical beam in the room to insulate it from the vibrations of people walking by. The clock is about five feet tall, a couple of inches taller than my grandmother, Mummu, my father's mother. The other clock is a grandfather's clock, about the height of my grandfather.

My grandfather, Vaari, was a cabinet maker. Particularly after my grandmother died, my grandfather built furniture, including a clock, to help fill the time. The old gent, as my father called him, was going to the hospital for some routine tests. A long-time Pall Mall smoker, his lungs needed to be checked periodically. My father went next door to drive my grandfather to the hospital. My grandfather showed my father the work he'd done on the clock. "I guess you're going to have to finish this," my grandfather said. A few days later, my grandfather died in the hospital. My father finished the clock and gave it to us 10 or so years ago.

We now call my father Vaari. I don't have a good phonetic spelling of vaari. The closest that I can get is vah-di or vah-ti, the last consonant being quite soft.

Today is Ash Wednesday, Chinese New Year, and Tet. For many Americans, Tet will forever be associated with the Tet Offensive of 1968. For others, it's a video game.

Hakkarainen's Maxim for Modern Communications, #17: Nothing good is likely to come from using Reply/All.

Last week I sent material out for review. The reviewers sent their comments in email, using Reply/All with lots of detail that compelled others to join in. It's like a pack of dogs on a water bed. It takes a long time for the noise and motion to settle down, even after the original problem has been addressed.

While most of us are heading off to an ordinary day of work in mid-winter, people all over the Christian world are preparing for Lent with revels in New Orleans and, of course, Brazil. It's a bit rich for my taste and for the tastes of Brazilians in our family.

A Massachusetts legislator, representing a largely Hispanic district in a neighboring city, is quoted in the local newspaper as saying, “I have nothing against Spanish people — I love ’em. I just don’t understand a word they’re saying.”

The weather forecasters issued messages about a potentially significant winter storm tomorrow night into Thursday, bringing us plenty of these. I'll bring my laptop home tomorrow evening with the likelihood of working from home on Thursday.

For a while there, it looked like neither team, coaches or players, wanted to win this one. There were plays badly called and badly executed. There were fumbles and dropped passes and missed tackles and costly penaltiees. And that's how the Patriots have done it, winning no matter how they play. Anyone can win when playing well. Great teams can win when playing badly. The Patriots brought a great team to Super Bowl XXXIX.

We can all be grateful that Charlie Daniels didn't have a wardrobe malfuction during his pre-game performance.

My vote for the best ad goes to P. Diddy and the Diet Pepsi truck.

In the meantime, the Red Sox championship trophy will be on display at my old high school. This is part of a victory tour around New England. When the trophy visits the Cape, brother-in-law Scott's company will be a co-sponsor.

A selectman in the town where I grew up observed that, with the influx of new people to the town, causing the population to swell to 7500, residents are now expecting that the roads be plowed, sanded, and salted on a regular basis.

The household is quiet again. It was good to have company, to get to know Russell a bit. He sat on Marian's lap and banged on the piano, playing better than I can.

In addition to the mishegas that is Monday, I get to have another conversation with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. The Commonwealth claims that my mother's estate owes some taxes. There were plenty of times when this could have been addressed three or four years ago, but, we (I) didn't. As executor, I'm responsible. We're not very practiced in these things and rely on professionals for guidance. In the end, though, what the state wants in tax money, the state gets.

Sandra will go with her mother to a doctor's appointment this morning. It could be routine or it could be more.

Baby Russell is crying in the upstairs bedroom. Marley, not used to the sound, is keening himself, pacing the downstairs floor.

Krista and Tess joined Cassandra in a mid-morning visit yesterday. For a while, this was a completely different household, the smell of a new baby blending with the smell of crayons deployed on the coloring books.

Krista was wearing a yellow Live Strong bracelet on her wrist. Elastic bracelets in various styles and for various causes have become popular of late. The blue elastic that I'm wearing might have political significance, but it might also be that the Post Office held our bundle of mail with a blue elastic a few weeks ago. (Although I was, and remain, a Boston Celtics fan, I started wearing an elastic on my wrist in 1959 when Wilt Chamberlain came into the NBA. Wilt wore rubber bands on his wrist out of superstition. He stopped wearing them during his retirement.)

We're having a fine stretch of weather. Yesterday afternoon I was outside shoveling, wearing a t-shirt and light sweatpants. We might see some precipitation mid-week, but that might be rain.

The travelers spent the night in Moncton NB and should arrive at the island house by late morning.

Today's installment of "Lord, I'll eat it up if you keep it down." comes from Iceland. (See the section on traditional food.)

In case we're not surprised enough by that strange face looking back at us in the mirror, we can now see the strangeness that awaits us.

For the last 20 years or so, the National Football League has shown that, on any given Sunday, any team can beat any other team. That said, the prospects for the New England Patriots look good today.

The household is getting an early start this busy Saturday. Sandra's brother, John, and his wife, Suanne, will arrive shortly after 6:00 for a trip to PEI with Woody. They'll be gone a week. J & S often spend a week in February at the the island. The weather looks good for the travelers both here and there. Mid-morning, we'll babysit Cassandra while Mike coaches Joe's basketball game. Later, Sandra's sister, Babara, will come for a visit, joining their brother, Scott, his wife, Valeria, and son, Russell.

On my ride home yesterday afternoon, after a tough, tough week at work, I was expecting the usual sturm und drang of politics, world misery, and Michael Jackson on the radio news. Instead, All Things Considered broadcast a magnificent segment on the Soweto Gospel Choir. Healing vibrations can find you, even on Route 9.

I first heard Turn Your Radio On performed by John Hartford on his Aereo-Plain album. It was and is one of my favorite tunes, about both gospel music and the power of radio. There's an apocryphal story about John Hartford, that he had his guest room decorated like a motel room. Most of his friends were touring musicians and he wanted them to feel at home.

Don't forget that Tuesday, 10 February, is Major Patch Day. It's not too late to get your cards in the mail. Seriously, though, it's really important to keep one's system up-to-date with the latest security patches. Having the latest patches, virus protection, and anti-spyware software doesn't guarantee that the bad guys won't break into your system, but not having that stuff guarantees that they will.

Oh, and on April 13, 2029, you might want to keep your head down.

During the overnight we picked up three or four inches of wet snow. The local schools have a two-hour delay.

Marley was so excited when he heard Sandra get up this morning that he went into my closet and brought me my sneaker.

Politics may be a blood sport in Boston, but small towns can mix it up pretty well. The librarian in Westminster, the town where I grew up, was fired in late 2003. Several employees had complained to the trusteees about her management style and practices, the complaints leading a public and unpleasant spectacle. In the last election, one of the library trustees was voted off the board. The former librarian is now a finalist to be her own replacement. The librarian was a good friend of and to my mother. Some 40 years ago my mother ran for library trustee. She lost. She wrote a delightfully sardonic paper for a college course, a tale of intrigue in East Crackerville.

I have a meeting with one of the software engineers to discuss what is and is not in one of my documents. That he asked to meet with me is a sign that he cares about what I'm writing. That he asked to meet with me is an indication that what I've written isn't covering the material in the way that he'd like. One more reason why they call it work.

By 8:00 yesterday morning, I had to turn to Plan B. (For those who care about such things, I ran into a couple of bugs in FrameMaker and DzBatch that would, under normal circumstances, be just annoyances. For me, they were showstoppers. I couldn't afford to spend any more tome on the problems, at least not yesterday.) I worked very hard and had three of the four books ready for review at day's end. My boss only stopped by my office once to see if I was going to be done on time. The fourth book is still a problem, but I have one more approach to try this morning. Plan B for this one isn't as clear.

Once I get the last book ready, I'm going to take a few hours to regroup. I think that it was worth the risk to try something new. I'm sure that I can salvage a good bit of what I've done, even if the full solution didn't work as planned. I also know, however, that I made things more difficult for myself. One of the hardest things in life and work is knowing when to keep working on a hard problem and when to bail.

After Tuesday's lab tests, today it's time to be ...inspected, detected.... (with four-part harmony and stuff). My appointment is at 7:00, so my work day won't start too late.

I don't know if this book would have helped me when I was crawling through high school, but the suggestion, "Don't take yourself too seriously." is always in order.

Although the critter in Pennsylvania is getting all the attention today, the celebration on February 2 goes back much further. Hedgehog Day became Groundhog Day when European settlers discovered that there are no native hedgehogs on this side of the pond. (You can get next year's Hedgehog Day stationery here.)

"Section. 3. [The president] shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union...." George Washington gave his first State of the Union address in person, but Jefferson and many other presidents sent letters instead.

I may have been too clever at work. I was trying to do some innovative things with my project and they're not coming together. I will give myself two hours this morning and if things don't work as required, I'll have to go to Plan B. Plan B isn't pretty, but it has a better chance for success. I have to have four books out for review today.

Which is probably why I am awake very early today. I rarely have trouble falling asleep. For example, watching Nova last night knocked me out cold. Waking early, though, is part of a familiar pattern.

Yesterday my boss sent a note to say that that I should plan to sign up for a course on Microsoft Exchange that's offered within the company in late March. I was bouyed by that. For one thing, it will be good to get some training. For another, it shows some confidence that I'll be around for a while. I doubt that they'd train me in new material and then send me packing a month later.

Rabbit, Rabbit.

Matt called last night and asked how he can get PowerPoint. He needs to do a presentation on Richard Nixon by next week. We don't have it on our home computer, either. PowerPoint is pricey for the occasional user and the OpenOffice tools aren't quite ready for civilian use. Fortunately, the library has a copy of PowerPoint that he can use. Matt's in the seventh grade. You can almost hear one more little blood vessel pop on Dr. Tufte's forehead.

I brought my work laptop home with me. I have an appointment for some lab work at 8:30 and need to finish up a couple of things this morning. As has been said, why do they call it fasting when it goes so slowly? At day's end yesterday, I was tripped up by a problem that could be a big deal. This is not the time to find such problems.

Some people have noted, and this even goes back to my time at IBM, that I've not been getting things done as I normally would. Tasks, many of them small and requiring just a few minutes of work, will lie about incomplete for weeks. Sometimes, a task may be blocked, waiting for another person to complete a related task, but, in many cases, I've not been able to get those things unstuck. I've wondered if it's the result of changes in some medication - too much or too little, it's not clear. That it's been going on for a year and half or more suggests something else. While I try to sort that out, there are some basics that can help me move forward. There are plenty of resources for help. Sandra is very good at acting on the principle of handling a piece of paper once - act on it, file it, or throw it away.

While I work on technical documentation for networked attached storage, other people write documentation (PDF) for products that are more essential to the well-being of the republic.

Even though Huck reported that his back was giving him a lot of trouble, when we arrived, we found him unloading a wheelbarrow full of wood in his living room. He'd managed to get the wheelbarrow from the woodshed and up over the back step. It wasn't that long ago that he couldn't get himself over the back step. His biggest concern now is that the belt that raises and lowers the snowplow isn't the right size, so it take a long time to lift the plow. The Jeep is also a bit hard to start and may need to have the carburetor rebuilt. The grandson of a now-deceased friend is willing to do the work. The Jeep isn't registered, though, so getting it to the grandson's home is a problem.

After the visit we walked a short segment of the Mass. Central Rail Trail. In most places, the going was easy, the cross-country skiers having packed down the snow nicely. Many people were out for a walk. One man pulled a sled that carried a six-month-old baby who was bundled up like a sack of laundry. We kept Marley on a leash, but he enjoyed the walk all the same. Even in the snow, there are lots of interesting smells.

On Saturday morning, Lily won a first-place gold medal in a skating competition. Her path to victory was eased when the only other girl in her class called in sick. Lily stood on the platform to receive her medal. All that was missing was the Florence village anthem.

Amazon.com reports that Holden residents are buying this music. Make of it what you will.

We had a great time with Matt in Boston yesterday. He's good company, interesting, interested, and funny.

The city is still packed with snow from last week's storms, so the sidewalks are narrow and slushy. Still, we enjoyed walking around on what felt like a spring day. We had a lunch of pho in a Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown, a walk around the Common, watching the skaters on the Frog Pond rink, and a visit to Jack's Joke Shop. The owner talked with us about the relative merits of the bagel-with-cockroach, dribbling glass, and snapping gum. Matt got the dollar snatcher and received special instructions.

Sandra and I saw first Blue Man Group eight or so years ago. The advertisements were telling us that it would be in Boston for just a few more weeks, so hurry. I bought tickets for her birthday. She received a blue kiss on the cheek after the show. Yesterday was our fourth time to the show and it's still good. I sat next to a woman, a widow of three years and recently retired, who was quite fearful when she saw the ponchos, asking me every which way what was going to happen. I think that she finally had a good time. I know that we did.

On the way home we stopped at the rest area on the Mass Pike for supper. A bus had just pulled in. Sandra talked with some of the passengers and the driver and learned that they were a track team from a Christian college in West Virginia, on their way home from a meet. After their meal, they were going to ride all night, about a 10-hour ride. They were very fortunate that they were traveling last night instead of a week ago when a blizzard was howling through the Northeast.

At least we could see the people taking our orders at the McDonald's on the Mass. Pike. Not so some people in Oregon, who are asking, "Why outsource to India or Singapore when Grand Forks ND is so close?"