In the middle of the middle of winter

Conventional wisdom has it that we should have at least half of our wood supply left by the end of January. Thanks to the warm weather, we're conventionally wise and can stay warm for the rest of the heating season. Today a light freezing rain is making for slippery passage, but it will warm soon and then the way will be just wet.

Some things shouldn't have to be illegal to make you not do them. Not doing them ought to be obvious. Ah, well, live free or die.

Although the Constitution says that, from time to time, the President must report to Congress regarding the state of the union, there is no requirement that the address be given in person. Presidents during most of the 19th century sent letters. Wouldn't it be nice if our current president did the same? I, for one, could do without the hour or two of his smirks on broadcast TV. If he's going to tell us that everything is getting better and that we should just keep shopping, we could learn about that in a letter.

Here's one explanation of why we don't get much work done at work.

We installed a couple of CO detectors this past weekend and found that the batteries had gone stale. The detector in the MacGregors' apartment started chirping during the night. They wound hiding it under a blanket until morning. Something such these self-charging smoke detectors would be handy.

CNN.com - Museum visitor trips, breaks Chinese vases - Jan 30, 2006

Gerald Ford released from hospital, resumes normal activities

January: more thaw than not

The overnight rain continues to eat away at the snow cover. It looks as though the storm, forecast for tomorrow, will miss us. We may get a few inches of wet snow, but nothing like the nor'easter that we'd originally expected. I'm looking forward to spending a few days in the office. My pockets and briefcase are crammed with scraps of paper - expense receipts, notes to myself, and other stuff. It will be good to clear away some of the physical and mental clutter than accumulates during a time of travel. I have something like 15 hours of conference calls this week.

We've been cleaning out some cabinets, getting at the A/V nest of cables, adapters, and sundry other gozintas and gozouttas. One envelope was marked "Screw hole plug cover things" and dated 9/92, proof enough that a thing at rest tends to stay at rest.

"Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat." - Mark Twain. G'bye, Juliet.

This just in. Half of the homes sold in December were sold for below the median price.

Whose whale is this? I think I know.

Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector," named his daughter Sarah Debs, giving her the initials SDS. (At this writing, Danny's blog web server is broken, but it may be back by the time that you read this.) I met Danny a few times back in the 70s. His dials are set to 11 almost all of the time.

Egad, my sushi just BSOD'd.

I think that a surprise Valentine's Day dinner here is likely to result in your being alone on the 15th.

Whose wire is this? I think I know.

The first five or 10 minutes of each meeting is spent getting network cables and power cords connected and working properly. From time to time, we will have an occasional struggle with a network switch or projector or screen. In case you wondered, this is what happened to all those A/V nerds whom you used to mock in high school oh so many years ago.

For all the "exceptional public interest" about Blackberry's being essential to business, it's interesting to learn that the most popular piece of Blackberry software on one site is RimMario, a port of the Super Mario Brothers game.

Recently, Jet Blue announced that they would be serving Dunkin' Donuts coffee on their flights. One less reason to fly with them. I don't like DD's coffee or their donuts. Tim Horton's in the Great White North does a much better job on both. Canada takes its donuts very seriously. (PDF viewer required.)

Scottish health officials are recommending that youngsters have haggis just once a week. No more all-you-can-eat haggisfests.

Because I'm here and not there, I'll miss a birthday party this evening. If I was there, I'd just mix up the presents.

Happy Birthday, Mike.

Net connections. Got some spare net connections, mister?

Beneath the din of our everyday life is a silence, a silence that results from the stopping of the hearts of Blackberry owners. Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the Blackberry, on a lower court's injunction in a patent dispute. (RIM is a Canadian company, but most of its business is in the states.) As it stands now, the Blackberry service in U.S. could go dark in February. I don't think that it will happen, though. There's too much money involved and there are too many addicted users. RIM will find a way to settle, although they lost almost all of their bargaining power. The deal that they turned down last fall looks pretty good.

The hotel is having a problem; its network cannot connect to the outside world. I learned this when I called their tech support. It's been a long time since I've talked with someone so bored and so condescending. I can be an idiot about some stuff, but not this.

We had a similar problem in the room where we are meeting with the customer. I began to think that I had the Midas touch - everything I touch turns to mufflers.

With the network connections down, the three-hour meeting was finished in two. The connections were restored in time for the lunch break. I can pretty well guarantee that we'll use all of the allocated time for the afternoon meetings.

Moo 2: The Re-Herding

An other center seat, but further back, all the better to smell the exhaust fumes from the jet engines.

Note to my fellow travelers: You will have to bend down to remove your shoes when you go through the security gate. Please be considerate of those who will see what they see when you bend over to take off your shoes. That thong that you are wearing might bring delight to you and to those with whom you are intimate. For the folks behind you in the line, not so much.

When I arrived at the Avis lot, my rental car was running and warm, a nice touch for a cold Chicago night. About a half foot of snow fell during the day, but the roads were clear.

Big city TV may be lame, but big city radio can be interesting. On the ride from O'Hare, I heard Latin music backed with a German polka band (complete with tuba).

Friend Tom reminded me that the blog style of writing has been around for a long time, that we're employing some new technology and names, but what we're doing remains the same. Going back to the 50s, my mother kept up the Hakkarainen Clipping Service (motto: no obligation to read, acknowledge, or return). She would send magazine and newspaper clippings, sometimes whole books, and, later, photocopies. I brought out an web version a few years ago and a marginally more technical blog a couple of years later.

No shirt. No shoes. It must be January.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you opened the paper one morning and found that the obituary page was empty?

The temperature dropped below freezing last night and snow is in the forecast for tomorrow. But, we've had harsher Octobers than this.

When it came time to remove the CD racks to prepare for painting the family room wall, it also came time for the CDs to go into the attic. I'm not ready to part with them yet, but I also haven't played a CD for close to two years.

Thoreau writes about the Mucclasse Indians who would burn their old possesions as a way of cleansing and simplifying their lives.

Keeping with the theme of one song/many versions, I've collected about a dozen versions of Pipeline by The Ventures. Don, sometimes solo, sometimes with his brother, Vinnie, used to do a pretty good version of the song. We hang out in their cellar, listening to the cheesy little amp, reading Mad magazine, next to the full-size pool table. Don could also do great recreations of Spike Jones tunes, such as the ever-charming Cocktails for Two.

Did you leave your Weinerwhistle™ in your other jacket? Fear not, for the Interactive Web Weinerwhistle is here.

It's a test of endurance, I know, but think of the children.

Would you buy a used document from this man?

It's common to have reorganizations at the start of a new fiscal year, a chance fix what isn't working or so fine-tune things that are working pretty well. For us, it was the latter. We learned that our group has moved out of engineering and now reports into the sales organization. (Technically, it's part of professional services, which is part of sales.) Overall, I think that it will be a good move, giving us more flexibility in dealing directly with the issues that a particular customer is facing. It's also a bit disorienting. This is the first time in my high-tech career that I have not worked in an engineering organization.

In the short term, nothing changes. I have another trip coming up. In the words of David Bromberg, "Another cup of sour coffee, one more piece of cardboard pie."

I took yesterday afternoon off so that we could tend to some business at our lawyer's. Afterwards, we visited with my father. He was in a somber mood. One of his hearing aids had to be sent to the factory, so he wasn't able to hear the conversation well. A good friend of his, and the only friend his age, is in hospice care and won't last long. Living a long time is good, but it comes with the risk that you may outlive all of your friends.

Sandra and I drove in to the camp at dusk. There was some ice on the hill, but one of the four wheels always managed to find purchase and keep us moving. We let Marley out and he ran beside, in back, and in front of us the rest of the way. The lake is solidly frozen, but there were puddles on top of the ice. There were lights on at two camps across the cove. We were tempted to walk over and visit, but it was getting late.

Studies show again that cell phone use doesn't cause brain damage, but I'm not sure about the reverse. This looks like a torture device for your cell phone, but it's worse. It lets you convert images and sound on your phone into presentations. Not only are you in sales, but you're an übergeek to boot.

Next month is Marley's 10th birthday. Maybe he'd like one of these.

CBC Prince Edward Island - 25 working at P.E.I. sandwich factory

How to make a sandwich in Canada: CBC Prince Edward Island - 25 working at P.E.I. sandwich factory

Locked and loaded to the next level

Yesterday was filled with conference calls from 9AM to 6PM, with just a brief respite at 1:30. One of the calls was a meeting with our new management team. The news was good, that the company will be investing in our group, which means new projects and likely some hiring. It's easy to lose sight of the good news when you hear executives talk about teeing up initiatives and other such silly biztalk.

A former professor of mine is an editor at the Massachusetts Review, a fact that I think is pretty much unrelated to the poem that begins Please help me get this pig, dear Lord, into my truck.

I didn't realize that Phyllis Schafly was still bringing her own brand of wisdom to the public forum. Not only does she was she one of the earliest to rise to the defense of Tom Delay, but she also believes that real men won't go to college unless they can play football. That sound you hear is the popping of the veins in her forehead when she reads about Boyz Night.

Geoff Gallop resigned this week as premier of Western Australia so that he could be treated for major depression. Some people hailed the decision as a courageous move, helping to bring greater awareness of this illness. Others were concerned that some might take this to mean that you have to give up your life's work if you become depressed. And, still others said, "Woo hoo. Now we can dig for uranium."

Another from the "I work hard, but this isn't hard work file." My favorite quote is, "It doesn't happen very often."

Someone put the refrigerator in reverse

A strong wind is pushing a thick fog across the snow and ice. We're getting reports from the New York City that bridges are closed because of the high winds. Temperatures are in the mid-50s and headed higher. No serious cold or wintry precipitation is in the forecast.

Robert Louis Stevenson said, "You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us." G'bye, Jack.

With digital music, it's easy to develop custom playlists. The playlist might include music from a particular genre, such as blues or hip-hop or tuva. Today I had a hankering for Caravan, the Duke Ellington/Juan Tizol masterpiece. I have eight versions of it, including Ellington, Buddy Rich, Art Blakey, and Dick Dale. There are a lot more out there, although I'll probably skip the Ferrante and Teicher version.

Someone gives you $100,000 . You a.) save some and give the rest to the kids and grandkids, b.) do something unexpected and perhaps life-changing, or c.) check to see what the others are doing before you decide.

Kids have Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & the Island of Misfit Toys. We have The Island of the Unwanted Documents.

Why Google has a market capitalization at the same level as IBM's[1]

An error message from Gmail, Google's web-based mail server:

Server Error

Gmail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We're sorry for the inconvenience.

[1]

And the word from the middle seat is "Moo."

The early morning rain had changed to a heavy wet snow by the time that the meetings concluded at noon. Many people, particularly those from the south and west, were quite anxious about driving in the snow. On the highways, the snow was just slushy and melted as soon as the tires hit it.

Without a remote car starter, I never would have found my rental car. It's bad enough that the Hyudais and Chevys and Tauri look pretty much alike, but, covered in snow, they all looked like the same lumps.

Interstate 90 west of Chicago is a toll road. At the exit ramp to O'Hare, there are three toll collection stations. Two are designated for iPass users. iPass is an electronic toll-paying system similar to FastLane in Massachusetts and EZ-Pass in New York. (In New Hampshire, I think you still pay with chickens.) The middle lane is a coin-collection basket. You're supposed to toss in the exact change. If you arrive at the exit ramp with no change, there is no way to get change. You are supposed to write down a number (while people are in back of you, honking), drive through, and then call that number within six days to avoid getting a ticket.

With luck, I got to the airport in good time and was able to get on an early flight, but a flight that was completely full. We were herded onto the plane with minimal use of cattle prods.

It's easy not to like some of my fellow travelers, such as the ones who jam two big suitcases into the overhead bins so that those who arrive later have to have their bags checked. There's also the trick of putting your bags into the first available spot in the overhead bins and then walking back to your seat. That way, the people in the front of the plane have to go back to get their bags when it's time to get off of the plane.

We received a snack, something with BBQ soy nuts and a bunch of multi-syllabic additives, including not more than 2% silicon dioxide. But, the coffee was Starbuck's, better than the industrial-strength motor oil that other airlines offer.

We had a delightfully smooth landing and taxied to the gate amid the beeps and peeps and boops of cell phones coming on.

I had parked in Central Parking in row 3-T. From the stairs, I went to row 3-M and onward. They skipped O and resumed with P. Q. R. S. Y. Y? Y?! I'm standing in a darkened parking garage in a land where they've repealed the Roman alphabet.

I walked around for several minutes before discovering another corner with a row marked 3-Z. I looked back toward the terminal and saw rows Y, X, W, V, and in the far, far reaches, from which the light left last Tuesday, I see row 3-T.

Once I was in my car and driving out of the parking lot, I could breathe easily and appreciate the stunningly bizarre parking techniques that my fellow travelers employ. They parked in places that were not only illegal, but incomprehensible - jammed between concrete pillar and walls such that the only way out of the car is through the moon roof.

Sandra and Marley greeted me in the driveway on a very balmy night. The foot of snow that I'd left behind was patchy and almost gone. We went in for a fine supper that didn't have a trace of silicon dixoide. Even if it did, there's no place like home.

Emptying the suitcase before going home

We have meetings until noon today. I'm going to go to the airport early with the hopes of getting on an earlier flight home. I have one conference call in the early afternoon, but I can call in from the airport.

Friday the 13ths are good days to spend a while wandering the net, looking for new Pogo resources. Not a lot new this time around, but the Wikipedia summary is getting better.

This prejudice map is based on a Google query for an ethnic or other type of group, identifying what a group is known for: "germans are known for *", for example. Here's one for Finns and another for Mainers.

This may be of interest only to folks in the Boston area and maybe not even then. Charles Laquidara is returning to local radio with a one-hour segment on WBOS. No word about Duane.

So, Levi's is bringing out a line of iPod-controlling jeans. Some items don't need a punch line.

I've been alternating between sleeping too little to sleeping too much. I'm on the too-much phase right now. If the too-little part of the cycle returns, I'll try out these tips. (Recent studies have indicated that the tryotophan in turkey is not likely to make us sleepy.)

As the disclaimer notes, don't try this at home. (Thanks to Dave Barry's blog.)

By the time we got to Nerdstock ...

The sun has broken through, revealing a landscape that is as bleak as it was when the weather was cloudy. These are flat lands where, as the saying goes, you can watch your dog run away from home for two days. There are small ponds by the sides of the roads, created when the roads were builts. The ponds are covered with ice, but there's no snow to be seen.

So, we are crowded in small conference rooms, everyone straining to get their power cords and network cables plugged in, as though to breathe. The people are smart, very smart, jaw-droppingly, head-spinningly smart. Most of the language isn't words, but acronyms and other abbreviations: GPON, TDM, WIPM, etc. I keep a notepad full of these things and when no one's looking, I use Google to find out what they mean. One person asked for the definition of an abbreviation. He got the answer, but someone in the room laughed. No one has asked since.

The meetings last from eight or nine in the morning until five in evening. Our hosts provide lunches for our noon break. In all, there are about 500 people attending these meetings, including the five of us from our company. On the first day, we were late getting to the table where they handed out the box lunches. All that was left was a stack of vegetarian lunches. We weren't going to let that happen again. Yesterday, 200 people were lined up at 11:20.

After the sessions close, I go to a local supermarket to buy something for supper and go back to the hotel. The others go out to dinner and likely hang around for drinks afterwards. I have other work to do. I can get a lot done on the Blackberry, but I can't edit large documents.

I am scheduled to come here three more times in the next few months. I'm glad that I'm here. I'm getting to learn the business and the technology in ways that I couldn't otherwise. This amount of travel, however, is hard on us all, particularly on special days.

Happy 10th Birthday, Krista.

Slouching toward Schaumburg

When I arrived at the ticket counter and learned that I would have to get my seat assignment at the gate, I knew that the flight to Chicago was full to overflowing. I checked in my suitcase because I was pretty sure that there wouldn't be any space available in the overhead bins.

The business travelers are easy to pick out in the lines at the security gates. They're the ones who have put their cell phones, pens, and spare change into their briefcase, are wearing shoes that are easy on and easy off, and have carry-on luggage that fits nicely into the x-ray machines. When it's done well, it's a joy to watch. It's not often done well, so the lines are long.

When I got to the gate, there was an announcement requesting people to give up their seats in exchange for a free ticket and an upgrade on the next flight out. I double-checked my schedule and learned that I didn't need to be at the customer site until noon. I could take the 8:00 flight, first class, and get there in plenty of time. So, I'm sleeping at home tonight instead of in a hotel in a chilly Chicago suburb (Hoffman Estates, right next to Schaumburg). I'll be on my way early. A night at home is worth it, even if it's a short night.

My suitcase is in O'Hare Airport.

How do you throw away a trash can?

The Patriots have had a season of winning ugly, playing just well enough not to lose. Unlike diving or skating, you don't get points in football for style; you get points for points, however you get them.

This past week, Robin Williams appeared at the Consumer Electronics Show with Larry Page from Google. A few times, I've seen Williams and Jonathan Winters on the same TV show. For a brief moment, the earth spins in the opposite direction.

We have a light snow falling, just enough to cover the icy patches on the driveway. We'll get some pseudo-salt out there before Woody and Marian go off to church.

We have a new trash barrel for our kitchen, meaning that we also now have a old trash barrel. We already have barrels for bird seed, stove ashes, kindling, and baseball bats. Besides, the old one is pretty far gone. We'll put it out with the other recyclables and hope that they take it away. Otherwise, we'll have to put inside a very big trash bag and have it taken away with the regular haul. See, this why life in the suburbs is so thrilling. No worries of war or plague or natural disasters. Just let me throw away stuff that I have too much of.

A glazed doughnut, hold the anthrax

Find out who's hot and who's not at the Mr. Heterosexual Contest in Worcester next month.

I received mail informing me that "Big Lithuanian company is looking for managers." The message also says that it doesn't contain spam, which, of course, means the obvious.

While doing some online banking, I occasionally enter some information in the wrong format. For example, if I enter one hundred dollars as 100, the web site will display a message that I'm an idiot because I'm supposed to include two decimal places: 100.00. It requires more work from the programmer to detect the errant format and then put up the message than it to just stick .00 at the end of the 100 and be done with it. Grumble, grumble.

You have to have a license to drive a car, build a house, own a dog, and some would claim you need a license for your pet fish, but you don't need a license to have kids.

Know that when the terrorists strike again, your Krispy Kreme doughnuts in Des Moines will be protected.

Back home in the snow and ice

With this regimen of travel, I've become methodical in the way that I pack for each trip. It's not only clothes, but also chargers for laptop, phone, and iPod, along with meds and other of life's essentials. A few years ago, I made a quick trip to Denver. I stayed a no-frills hotel near the airport. On the way back to the hotel one night, I picked up my supper at a convenience store - yogurt, fruit, maybe some pretzels. It was a few miles back to the hotel. (The airport is way out of town on the prairie.) When I got back to my room, I discovered that I didn't have a spoon for the yogurt. The hotel didn't have a restaurant and I didn't feel like getting in the car and driving someplace. So, I ate the yogurt with my toothbrush. I now keep a spoon in my briefcase.

There was no snow on the ground in White Plains and only a smattering until I reached Hartford.

Will this guy please shut up?

I got a dose of bromidrosis during last night's ride home, putting to rest my concerns that Sirius wouldn't play Frank Zappa.

If anyone buys these cat-claw covers, please let us know about your experiences putting them on your cat. It's got to be close to giving a cat a bath or a pill.

Dessication Row

The hotel where I stay is nice enough, but is showing signs of wear. The sign atop the building, for example, says, Crow e Plaza Hotel. Not all of the buttons in the elevators light up. The carpet is worn on high-traffic corners. The heating system is pretty much on or off and the air is as dry as the Gobi.

But, they do offer wireless Internet access, free if you're a member of the frequent stayer program. The staff is courteous. I don't know about the restaurant; I've not eaten there. I pick up my meals at the Whole Foods restaurant a block away and dine in my room, watching the mediocre local New York news. You know that the media capital of the world is in trouble when the Fox station offers the best news programming.

Yesterday's meetings were interesting. One of the engineers was presenting information about our new product to the people who would be installing and configuring the software at the customers' sites. Instead of using PowerPoint, the engineer used the documents that I wrote. Pretty cool, I thought, until we discovered a few minor mistakes in the document, things that you might not notice until you put it up on the big screen. So, today, I have to update the docs and deliver them anew.

Looking for an exotic vacation this winter? How about a bus tour of storm-ravaged New Orleans, courtesy of Gray Line New Orleans.

From "The More I Meet People, The More I Like My Dog" department, we learn that nursing home residents with rather spend time with a visiting dog than with each other.

Tunes from the sky

Another year, another trip to White Plains. Yesterday's drive started in moderate snow and faded to light rain across Connecticut. I left behind a half foot of snow; there's almost none on the ground here.

To make the three-hour trip a bit more pleasurable, I decided to get satellite radio. I chose Sirius, not because of Howard Stern, but because Sirius has the CBC and world news radio than does XM. One channel offers English-language broadcasts from national radio stations around the world, including countries such as Slovakia, China, Sweden, Ireland, and other locations.

The music selections are also pretty good. I've yet to hear any Frank Zappa or Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac, but they do have a good selection of surf music on their 60s channel. Yesterday, I listened to Jackson Browne's "The Load Out/Stay." That was (and perhaps still is) a favorite when, at the end of a trade show, we'd strike the set and get the equipment onto the trucks, heading back home or perhaps to another show.

Of course, Sirius isn 't meant to replace my iPod or stop my drift into iPod oblivion.

I'm not looking for a new job and, even if I was, it wouldn't be for a job as a cartoon artist. Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, is helping another cartoonist find an artist to work on a syndicated strip. BTW, Scott Adams was one of the first, if not the first, to put an email address on the comic strip. This was in the early 90s, '92 or '93, perhaps.

If you're interested, you might want to practice here. You can see how well you draw and also learn what you draw says about you.

Of course, if your drawings reveal that you need psychiatric help, there's one place you probably don't want to go. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a group founded by the Church of Scientology, has opened the 'Industry of Death' Museum, an exhibit on the horrors brought about by the psychiatric profession.

A Tuesday that is like a Monday, mostly

Lily was scheduled to start at her new school today, but the weather had other plans for her today. We have four inches of heavy wet snow on the ground here. The forecast calls for more.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't say, "I work hard, but this isn't hard work."

The latest security hole identified in Windows is particularly nasty. (More info here.) It has the potential to infect a system just by viewing an otherwise innocent-looking image (in the Windows Metafile, .wmf, format). At this writing, even systems with up-to-date anti-virus software and fully patched systems are vulnerable. What to do? Well, it's a good idea to practice safe surfing for a while, staying away from non-mainstream web sites. Using another browser is good, too. Firefox users can be hit, but only if they accept the download of the infected file. For some folks, using another operating system is a good choice - Mac OS, for example. Damn Small Linux (DSL) is about 50MB and can run from a USB drive without affecting your Windows installation.

Zippy didn't say it, but someone had to: "BEEB WIN BELLS TELLY DING-DONG"

Niece Lori moved to California this past year and loves it. Californians don't need these, but one of these might come in handy.

I've known cats all of my life. They can be affectionate and funny, but my sense of urgency has never translated into any action on the cat's part.

The twoth of the new year

A friend of a friend is the mother of a junior high school girl. The mother wouldn't allow the daughter to go to a particular dance. "You're, you're," sputtered the daugher. "You're so Amish."

It was odd not to have any college footballs games on TV yesterday. Time was, New Year's Day was dominated by the four major bowl games - Cotton, Sugar, Rose, and Orange, all without corporate sponsors. Today we have the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic, Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, and Nokia Sugar Bowl.

Yesterday we went to visit my father, who's doing remarkably well. Adam visited with him last week and recorded several hours of story-telling as my father recounted his times riding the rails during the Depression.

After our visit, Sandra and I drove in to the camp. The road was icy and covered with three inches of fresh snow, but the Subaru walked up the hill as nicely as you please. Everything at the camp was in good order, inside and out. Coming down the camp road was, um, interesting. We slid down half the hill, gliding gently out into the roadway below.

We arrived home in time to see Doug Flutie's drop-kick, the first in pro football since 1941.

Today's automated search for a technical documentation job brought a listing for a Emercency Room Director.

So, one of them says, "Let's paint a baseball 20,000 times." And, the other one says, "Good idea."

It was sad to learn that Dave Barry has permanently given up his weekly column. He was on sabbatical for 2005. He will, however, continue write occasional pieces such as his year in review and blog, which leads us to such essential knowledge as Roto-Rooter's Top Five Drainpipe Recoveries of 2005.

Click and Clack give advice about replacing your headlight fluid (second letter).

Dwell on the past and you'll lose an eye; forget the past and you'll lose both eyes

We met our project deadline at work. I added my final two documents to the build at 11:15, 45 minutes ahead of schedule. Relieved and congratulatory emails richocheted around the group for the rest of the afternoon. We also learned that the sales group closed another large account, giving us additional work for the coming year. We made it. We can use the long weekend to breathe and then get going again.

My manager let us out early. So, Sandra and I went to visit with Adam, Jennie, and Lily. We had our first visit to their new house, a log cabin on eight acres in one of the hill towns just a bit further west. It's a nifty place, with both warmth and openess. Lily will start at her new school on Tuesday; the family will move a few weeks later. After the visit, we went to one of Lily's favorite restaurants, a Mongolian barbeque place in Hadley. Although there were no Mongolians to be seen, we dined well and had lots of good talk and laughter.

Today we hope to gather up some of Mike and Lynn's kids to go to the latest Harry Potter movie.

Snow is in the forecast for this evening, making travel even more treacherous. Tonight is amateur night, a time when lots of otherwise well-behaved people get drunk. The serious drunks are apt to take the night off, preferring to show their stuff when everyone least expects it, like some Tuesday morning in March. Anyway, the serious drunks have known for a long time that there's no cure for a hangover; here's the science. If you want to avoid a hangover, don't take that first drink.

In case you were wondering, Hiatchi claims that The Hard Drive is the New Bling.

It's nice of people to share their dreams with us. This guy, for example, wanted to set the record for the longest ear hair. And, this guy implanted an RFID chip in himself.

[The title for this entry comes from an Russian proverb, quoted by Solzhenitsyn at the start of The Gulag Archipelago.]

As I've mentioned in the past, I don't typically make New Year's resolutions. If a good habit is worth starting, any day is fine. It was 20 years ago yesterday, I just remembered, when I had my last cigarette. Here are, nevertheless, some tips for setting goals, whether those goals are set tomorrow on New Year's Day or some Thursday in November or some Tuesday in March.

Stuff left in the toe of the Christmas stocking

We're putting in some long days this week as we head toward our project deadline of noon on Friday. There are times during the day when a nap would be helpful, but it's not to be. We'll just hope that the coffee supply holds up.

It's election season in Canada. A question that I'd never asked once, let alone frequently: "Is someone allowed to eat a ballot?" (Hint: No.)

And when we're through wondering what our neighbors to the north are doing for the future of civilization, we look across the pond and find that Sienna Miller is the most admired woman among teenaged British girls. Paris Hilton was #8 on the list. Paris Hilton. My theory is that Alistair Cook's bones weren't stolen, but that the spinning in his grave sent the bones too deep to be found.

Another holiday recipe - Creamy Spam Broccoli Casserole. Nice touch - skim milk and low-fat cheese to go with the Spam.

Finally, during flu season, never let anyone lick your keyboard.

I'm pretty sure that the pogo stick isn't ours

We're awakening to a quiet house, a light rain falling outside and fog rolling over the snow. Inside, there's a lot to pick up, clean up, and put away. There are several half-pies on the table and lots of leftovers in both refrigerators. And then there's the pogo stick, still in its box, "Lots of good healthy fun and exercise, indoors and outdoors." And, as the fog lifts, I can see two snowboards in the back yard.

It was a great party and everyone contributed. Sandra did most of the planning and lots of the cooking. People helped us fill the dishes before the meal and wash the dishes afterward. (Marley did his party, pre-washing many of the serving dishes and pans.)

I've kept people posted about our lives through this journal. Niece Lori asked, "So, who is Blaugustine?" I explained that Liz and I had worked together for several years at a previous company and that we now kept in touch via email and blogs. Juliet's health concerns became part of the dinner conversations.

While I was in our office, showing Michael and Joe how to put music files on their MP3 players, our granddaughters and Jennie's sister, Julie, were playing hide-and-go-seek around the house.

Folks left a bit after six. We fed 35 people. We'd parked our cars at the drug store parking lot about a quarter mile away, giving us more room in our driveway. Sandra, Marley, and I walked down to get the cars, enjoying the cool and quiet night.

Today we'll visit my father, bringing him a couple of meals of leftovers. We bought him a pair of Yaktrax so that he can walk across the ice more easily to get to his wood pile.

Bark us all bow-wows of folly

We went to Mike and Lynn's for a bit of Christmas Eve gift-giving and a dinner of Chinese food (nothing like this on the menu, though). Before the meal, we (Sandra and her parents and yours truly) drove around to see the Christmas lights. Some families have done put up glorious displays. Several years ago, we spent Christmas at Prince Edward Island. There the lights on the houses were even more hopeful because the houses are so far apart, the only bits of color and light in a dark night.

As Curly said, I have a cold and I don't smell so good. Soon the house will be filled with the smells of beef and turkey and veggies and pies and stuff(ing). People will arrive around noon and we expect to eat at 2:00. The weather is nice, so the kids can play in the yard, using their new sleds on the crusty snow.

Our kitchen is in the middle of our house. Even though I'll spend most of my time cooking, everyone has to pass through the kitchen on their way to anywhere else, so I'll get to see everyone and talk with most.

This is a needed time for a break from work. We have a very big deal deadline at noon on Friday. (If we don't deliver, the company doesn't get paid.) I have a rule that I can give one 70-hour week in each release. With Christmas weekend, I'll have long days, but I'll have a chance to recuperate. It means that I get to work my 40 hours in three days, instead of five.

We received lots of nice Christmas cards and newsletters. We're going to write back; at least we want to. The mailings may not get out until Groundhog's Day, though. As a friend observes - Don't be sorry. Change.

My Blackberry arrived and I've had a chance to play with a bit. Lots of features that I'm sure will be fun to play with while observing the posted speed limits on our interstate highways. The biggest deal about the Blackberry, I think, came when I was placing the order. I was trying to decide between a one-year and two-year contract. There was a significant savings in placing a two-year order, but I was hesitant because I wasn't sure if my job would be around in two years. "Don't worry," said our office administrator, confidently. I placed a two-year order.

The rest of the lyrics for Deck Us All With Boston Charlie/Bark Us All Bow-Wows of Folly are here.

In the time-honored tradition ...

The Red Sox let another of their best players get away, to the Yankees no less. There's no question that Johnny Damon is getting a lot of money from New York, more than $50M over four years. (Although he'll have to cut his hair and beard to get it.) The Red Sox could afford it and they need a high-energy guy like Damon to spark the team. I didn't mind losing Wade Boggs or Roger Clemens to the Yankees because they were arrogant and self-centered ballplayers. Damon, we'll miss. A lot.

Nothing says that you're celebrating Jesus' birth like:

• iPod boxer shorts
• Coyote fur hat
• Bacon-cooking alarm clock

And, of course, interesting opportunities keep showing up in my automated searches for technical documentation jobs:

• Looking for Cosmetolgist or Barber for a fun, relaxed sports enviorment [sic]
  
• CAREER BELLS RING, ARE YOU LISTENING? GM/CHEF OPENINGS NOW! (a sing-along)

The four candidates seeking the Canadian prime minister's post had a debate in French in Vancouver last week. They'll have a debate in English in Québec.

With the amount that I'm traveling for work, I'll be getting a Blackberry. The folks who make the Blackberry, Research in Motion (RIM), have been in a nasty legal dispute with NTP regarding patents that may or may not have been infringed. It's doubtful that RIM would let the Blackberries go dark; there are too many users and there is too much money involved. But, then, the Red Sox did let Johnny Damon get away.

Dice - Position 237

My automated job searches for a technical documentation position turned up this one: Dice - Position 237: "Heliarc Welder - local candidates need only apply". It's a job that my father could easily do, but he enjoys his retirement too much.

Canadian Cottage Holidays - Cottage rental and resort listings across Canada

Canadian Cottage Holidays - Cottage rental and resort listings across Canada: "from the hot sand dunes of Prince Edward Island..."

PEI, the new Malibu.

Messages as we find them

Seeing my mother's handwriting and reading her affirmations is just like hearing her voice. And she loved Papermate pens with the blue ink.

Collateral damage in a field of white

We picked up better than a foot of snow on Friday, the bulk of it coming in just a few hours. I worked from home and learned via email that the office was closed by mid-afternoon. The snow was light and the snowblower moved it away easily until the end. We cover the snowblower with a tarp during the off-hours. When it's time to start the cleanup, I remove the tarp and set it aside on top of the snow on the lawn. As I was returning the snowblower to its place, my glasses were covered with snow and, well, the snowblower inhaled the tarp, thick blue plastic wrapped around the auger. Yesterday morning, I spent nearly an hour cutting away the tarp, leaving a ground cover of blue confetti.

A couple of weeks ago, my father was getting his Jeep ready for the season. It started, but sounded a bit rough. He removed the air filter and found that it was filled with acorns.

Can you hear me now? Woof.

Gmail, Google's mail service, has a new feature called Web Clips. It presents links to news stories and, occasionally, advertisements. Gmail has a very good junk mail filter and puts all suspected junk mail into a Spam folder. When I go to clean out that folder, I also get a link for Spam recipes, such as Gingered Spam Salad.

The pace of work is picking up. We have a major project due on the 30th, with a contract payment contingent on product delivery. People have been even-tempered, a nice turn. I have had a couple of engineers provide helpful reviews of the documents I'm writing. In turn, I have a few cycle to help another team. I'll go White Plains for a couple of days to determine how best I can help with the other project.

We've started planning our family Christmas dinner. We'd originally counted 34 people, but several won't be able to join us. We have our menu planned. We're fortunate that Christmas comes on a Sunday, giving us an extra day for preparation. But, we're most fortunate that we have a family that wants to join us for the holiday. We have many blessings.

Goodle Good News - Funny Stuff - David McCandless

Goodle. Good news doesn't come easily; someone has to make it happen.

Well, there goes the neighborhood

A few cubicles opened up near my manager, so my co-workers and I moved recently. I did my best to clean my old cube before I moved and expect that the former tenant did the same. That said, there was an empty "Break The Curse" cookie package along with clear evidence that mice had dined well.

This new area is noisier than my previous location, all the more reason to crank up the tunes. I record broadcasts from radio stations over the Internet and then listen to them on my own schedule. Lately there have been a lot of tributes to the guitar great, Link Wray, who died last month.

You'd think that New York would have world-class TV news. It is, after all, the largest city in the country, the media capital, and the home of newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Nope. The TV news, at least what I've seen of the morning and evening offerings, isn't much better than the hyperventilated happy talk that we get locally. Heck, the small market stations, such as Manchester NH or Springfield MA, do just as well. And, with the local stations, you stand a chance of seeing clips from high school football games.

Next week we're having a holiday party at work. (Oh, bliss.) We were asked to bring foods from our ethnic traditions. I persuaded my boss that it wouldn't be a good idea to bring Finnish cuisine to a civilized gathering. I remember avoiding the pickled herring and baked turnip, but that's just the beginning. This article, for example, offers such gastronomic bombshells as fish aspic and lamprey. A cousin has had a business exporting dried reindeer meat, the perfect appetizer for a Christmas gathering. "Here, friends, have some Rudolph."

Happy 92nd Birthday, Huck.

Human Edge Software - First Class Overview

Human Edge Software - First Class Overview: "
First Class is synonymous with timetabling excellence."

...in case you were wondering.

Ice and snow and away we go

The weather forecast is calling for a stormy week, with wind and rain on Tuesday, possibly mixing with ice or snow, and then more precipitation that could give us snow cover by Thanksgiving. Today I'll bring the snow blower from behind the back shed and get it ready, just in case.

The ponds and sheltered portions of the lakes have a skim coat of ice. Yesterday we talked with someone who works at Mt. Wachusett, the ski area, not the college, She said that there was a chance that the mountain would be open for skiing this week. They've been making snow for a few days, covering several trails.

Sandra's parents returned from PEI on Friday and are settling for winter in Holden. It's nice to have them around. They're good company and good housemates.

It will be nice not to travel this week. I've gone to White Plains for five of the eight weeks in my new job, enough for me to know my way around the supermarkets, parking lots, and highways. The hotels that we use a typical business hotels, nicer than a Motel 6, but not a Trump Tower. High-speed Internet access is becoming standard, like air conditioning. With IBM nearby, White Plains is something of a technology center, but that doesn't stop politicians from making silly proposals. Most of the time, I buy my supper at Whole Foods, a natural food store, and go back to my room. One night I went out to dinner with some of the systems engineers who travel something like 40 weeks a year. They've been on the road too long and live at a pace that's too much for me.

My automated searches for technical documentation jobs are still finding some gems: Sensory Science Research Associate. "The successful candidate will set up and run sensory panels used to evaluate edible oils, food and beverages....Our Client develops, manufactures and sells naturally produced products from microalgae and fungi."

I've dressed pretty much the same way since high school - button-down shirts, slacks, loafers, ooccasionally a pocket protector. Most of my co-workers dress comparably, with a just a few folks in jeans and t-shirts. The IT industry, as rule, however, is pretty badly dressed. At Digital, one of the engineers wore red, flannel pajamas to work. (I don't think that they were the kind with the feet and the drop seat.)

As you prepare for Christmas, don't forget your USB-powered Christmas tree. (Google translation of the page is here.)

They shall not grow old

They shall not grow old: "They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them. "

Thank a veteran today, if only in your remembrances.

Like a dog circling before it lies down, we're getting ready for winter. The outdoor furniture is put away. The storm windows are in place. The little heater that keeps the birdbath ice-free is plugged in. Sandra's parents will be returning from PEI next week. John Gardner talked about locking time, that time in November when things start to freeze up in New England. It's been mild this fall, so things are running a week to 10 days late. The big maple next to our house usally drops its leaves by Halloween; it's just now shedding the last. It was 25 this morning, so we're still moving toward winter.

Grandson Joe broke his arm Wednesday night. In a pig pile with his cousins, his arm went south while he went north. We saw him briefly last night and he was comfortable, able to give that great Joe smile.

Things are returning to normal in Ottawa. Mysterious radio signals were causing automatic garage doors to misbehave. The Canadians were blaming the American embassy. Someone could make a nice living selling tin-foil hats in the capital.

In today's almost-a-good-idea department: what could let drivers pay even less attention to the road ahead? A chance to watch traffic videos on their cell phones.

The other night, we had high winds which seem to have unsettled Marley. He was barking often through the night. It may be time to order an Anxiety Wrap for him. He's too big for a hoodie bed.

SI.com - MLB - Phils' Urbina arrested on attempted murder charges - Tuesday November 8, 2005 11:23AM

SI.com - MLB - Phils' Urbina arrested on attempted murder charges - Tuesday November 8, 2005 11:23AM: According to published reports, last month, Ugueth Urbina and a group of men allegedly wielded machetes at several employees at his family's ranch, and poured gasoline on them in an attempt to set them on fire. Urbina is a former Red Sox reliever. Urbina's lawyer said, "This of course can in some way hurt his career as a professional ballplayer..."

Notes from an area

A couple of times each year, I return to my college for some alumni work. This year, there was a mix-up and the stuff that I was to do didn't happen. Instead, I spent a couple of hours on a college campus, decades after I belong here. It's hard to get a sense of the mood on campus in just a couple of hours. The students seemed earnest, perhaps a bit too much so for a Saturday evening. Upstairs in the campus center, a band was rehearsing, playing old songs such as Piece of My Heart, Dixie Chicken, and Life During Wartime. They weren't very good. The rhythm section was ok, but the singers, one male and one female, each needed at least another half octave of range.

A sign on the southbound side of I-684:

Next Area
13 Miles

The next time that you fail to deliver on expectations at work, you can follow the example of Patrick Byrne, president of Overstock.com. "Q3 was rough. My bad."

The Red Sox will probably recover from the loss of GM Theo Epstein, but not quickly. With so many key players eligible for free agency and Manny being Manny, it'll be a challenge to put a contending team on the field next year. It was dumb to let him get away.

Yesterday on NPR's Morning Edition, Lynn Neary reported on an illustrated edition of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. The samples that I've seen on the NPR site are cute, but don't add to my appreciation of the elegant little original.

Happy 1st birthday, Cassandra.

Nice mask

We're gettting a nice stretch of Indian Summer with blue skies and mild breezes. On Saturday the eastern part of the state picked up as much as three inches of snow while we had none.

This will be a nice evening for trick-or-treaters. We don't get many. The neighborhood has just a few young kids. This year I only bought one (though large) bag of candy so we won't have a lot of leftovers. (We like 'em, but don't need 'em.)

I've long believed that the best way to deal with competitors is to send them new computers. Their productive will go into the tank and stay there for weeks as they get their new systems configured properly. Before my last trip to White Plains, I had to return one laptop that I'd borrowed and take another loaner with me on the trip. When I returned, my new laptop was ready. I'm still adding small programs and setting configurations. I expect that it will be Thanksgiving before I'm done.

I've added some new music to my weekly listening. WAMU, a public radio station in Washington, D.C., has a Sunday morning show called Stained Glass Bluegrass. The sound quality isn't great, sounding muddy like a cheap AM radio, but the music is fine.

Happy Birthday, Jane Pauley.

Test Day

Today is the last day of a week of network management training in White Plains. This afternoon, we'll have a two-hour test, 90 questions on the material we've covered. I've been reviewing my notes during breaks and am reasonably confident that I'll do ok.

Some folks in the class have spent most of their class times reading and writing email, surfing the web to plan their vacations, and shopping. They seem to know know their stuff, so who am I to judge?

The sky is clouding over and it looks like rain for the ride home. There was a frost last night in parts of north central Massachusetts, a late first frost this year. We still don't have much color in the trees, either. An odd season, this.

Happy 14th Birthday, Matt.

Snippets

One of the standard tests of culture is being able to listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of th Lone Ranger. The local classical station has been advertising a production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Naturally, my thoughts go to Bugs Bunny or Alfalfa from The Little Rascals.

The folks in the back room at the National Weather Service get to wax poetic every once in a while. Remarking on the diminished strength of Tropical Storm Vince, they wrote, "As the short happy life of Vince is now over...this will be the last advisory."

Now that the two-month lockout at the CBC has ended, we can keep up with the news about our northern brethren who are trying to gather the potato harvest in the rain.

There's been some good reaction in the tech press to IBM's announcement that it will donate a portion of the Rational Unified Process to the open source Eclipse Foundation.

Apple didn't release an 80GB iPod, as had been rumored, opting for a video iPod instead. Dunno. Maybe there's a market for it, but not with me.

Belief in God may be the result of evolution.

Treating depression in the workplace may make good business sense.

And the rains came

When I left the camp on Sunday, I did what they tell you not to do - drive on a road that's covered with water. A stream had overflowed, covering the road with a half foot of water. It's the first time that I've seen flooding on this stream. This flooding was mild compared to what hit southern New Hampshire, which, in turn, was a flicker compared to Guatemala. And, through it all, the ground stayed firm and steady, unlike Kashmir.

Fortunately, I brought in a supply of wood last week, so we have plenty of dry stuff for the stove. Wood prices are up about 30% this year. Last week I placed an order for green wood that will be dry by late spring if we need it.

It's been said that folks in Boston are not baseball fans; they're Red Sox fans. They're not football fans; they're Patriots fans. And so on. With the Yankees dispatched, I doubt that there will be much interest in the White Sox-Angels series. Maybe this is the year for the White Sox; they're certainly due.

I settled in and got some good work done yesterday, finishing off a tools assignment from my previous job and starting on plans for the upcoming release. The new project cycles between "This is manageable." to "The wheels are coming off and we have three more hills to climb." It's now on the manageable side of the cycle. It was raining mid-day, so Sandra and I walked indoors. Going to all sections of the building, we covered about a mile. Sandra and I sit two aisles apart.

Reports have it that Apple will announce new iPods this week, including a top-of-the-line 80GB beast.

I don't need to look for a job, but I've kept my automated searches running just to see what's out there. So, in my automated search for a technical documentation position, I received a lead on a position as Directory, Stewardship and Foundations for Focus on the Family.

In the late color

A low fog tumbles across the lake, the cold wind skimming over the (relatively) warmer water. You wouldn’t know that the water is warmer by standing it, however. I had some work to do on the boat and was in and out of the water for a half hour or so. Now I’m sitting next to the wood stove, warming and drying.

The rain has let up for a while now. During the night, the wind shifted to the northwest and bringing buckets of rain until early morning. Columbus Day weekend is usually the peak for foliage viewing, but not this year. The color is late and what color we have is dull.

Sandra and Marley are driving back from PEI and will be home this afternoon. It’s a long drive to make in a weekend. The connection to her parents and to the Island is important.

For many people, tomorrow is a holiday, Columbus Day in the States, Thanksgiving in Canada. We’re working, but many people will take the day off because the kids are out of school. Last week, when I was in White Plains, there were many kids around the office. Some schools in the New York area close during Rosh Hashanah.  

After I close up the camp this morning, I’ll go to my father’s house. He left his cane here when he came by here yesterday for coffee. A couple of weeks ago, he slipped while going up the cellar stair at his house. He bumped his shoulder in just the right way and chipped his collarbone. Generally, he’s been doing pretty well these past few months. This latest bump has meant that he hasn’t been able to get the mower deck off his tractor so he can work on the steering. It’s also nearing the time when he will have to get the Jeep ready for winter.

As I go into the third week of my new job, I am enjoying the people but am anxious about the amount of work. I’ve had difficulty concentrating while reading. I have a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday and will talk about it more then. I don’t know if the difficulties are the result of the meds or the condition that the meds are trying to treat. I’ll be in the local office all of this week and then back to White Plains for the next.

In a white room

A quick post from a hotel in White Plains, New York. I'm here for a couple of days of meetings with my new project team. The team is a mix of stand-at-home engineers, testers, and writers and a troupe of traveling consultants and sales people. It's a good group of people.

Downtown White Plains is a dense cluster of tar and concrete. The ride here, about three hours, isn't bad, although I can see how it could jam up quickly in bad weather. I'm glad to be going home this afternoon.

Happy Birthday, Lily. Good luck to Adam, Jennie, and Lily in their new adventure.

Five years

The past five years have given us two presidential elections, the September 11th attacks, the tsunami, Hurricaine Katrina, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. My mother would have found these events fascinating. It would have been heart-rending for her to watch us go to war, but she would have followed the details all the same. She would have been bouyed by the program of peace studies at her alma mater. "I'm planting winter wheat," she'd said of projects that might not be completed in her lifetime.

It's been five years since my mother died and we still miss her. Not only do we miss her good humor, generosity, and eclectic spirit, but we also miss the way that she help us understand the world in a different way. Each day held something interesting. Each person brought something new. Each idea connected her with someone important in her life. She lived as she died, surrounded by friends and family, in her room and in her heart.

Re-entry

It's not good that vacation's over, but it's good to be home. Well, the part where Marley got sprayed by a skunk last night wasn't so good. We got through it pretty well. A combination of tomato juice, and then soap and water, and then a concoction that we got from the vet's the last time he was sprayed (the time that he had the skunk in his mouth) gave us a dog that smells pretty much like a dog. My co-workers may notice a slight fragrance that isn't Old Spice, but that shouldn't last more than a few days. Marley was very tentative when he went out this morning and was glad to get back inside to lie in front of the stove.

We finished our time at the camp in fine style. Adam, Jennie, and Lily came for a visit. We toured the lake in the boat. Adam showed his chops as a water-skier and demonstrated his prowess at pie-baking (blueberry).

At home, we shuffled through the big box of mail that the post office had held for us, a couple of letters, many bills, a few magazines, a lot of catalogs. The world missed us.

So now there are tinges of orange in the maples and it's dark earlier each day. With the bright blue sky this morning, it's uneasily like that bright and cool morning four years ago when so much changed.

Angles of the sun

There are two small windows on the east side of the camp, on the same side as the fireplace. At this time of year, and again in early spring, the rising sun sends beams of light through the window and straight across the room to the kitchen counter on the opposite wall.

We need a fire in the stove every morning now. We have our breakfast at the table near the stove, rather than on the porch. We went for a swim yesterday afternoon and noticed the layer of cold water on the bottom. That cold water hadn’t been there even a few days ago.

Today we’ll go for a walk at local nature preserve, a nice path a couple of miles long up and then down a wooded hillside. Marley will have a good run. We’ll then have lunch at the Petersham General Store. This afternoon I’ll sharpen the chain saw so that we can continue to cut up the scrap wood that’s around.

Mike and Lynn brought their family here on Monday. We had a wonderful time with the boat and with each other’s company. The tube that we pull behind the boat can hold three people, so everyone in their family, except for Cassandra, had a chance to ride. Mike, Michael, and Matt each had their turns with water-skiing with minimal loss of blood. Adam, Jennie, and Lily will be here on Saturday.

I met with a new doctor on Tuesday and we sketched out a new plan to get me on track. I enjoyed the visit. The doctor is very pleasant and very smart.

When my new job starts in a couple of weeks, I don’t know how much time or energy I’ll have for this kind of writing. I’ve enjoyed this a lot, enjoyed the chance to sort out my thoughts and to stay in touch with family and friends.

Windows on the world

For the seven years that we’ve been taking our vacations at the camp, we’ve kept a list of our vacation activities. Some years are quiet and our list records canoeing, walks, and rest. Others have interrupted by external events, such as my mother’s health in 2000, a trip to take a friend to detox, or replacing a water pump. This year’s list includes an offer of a permanent job, an offer that I received on Monday and accepted yesterday. It’s a job with the company where I’ve worked as a contractor, although with a different group. I’ll start on September 26th, giving me a couple of weeks to wrap up my current assignments.

It’s exciting. I’m very grateful to the people who helped me get this job and who have supported me during the transition. I’m a fortunate guy.

And what else is on the vacation list? Well, we do have a new boat. There’s always work to do, wood to split and stack, brush that needs clearing, objects of various sizes and shapes that need painting. It’s not all work, though. Hardly. We get to visit some favorite restaurants and farm stands. We get to swim whenever we want. With Marley back with us again, walks through the woods are more lively.

Storms are around, spin-offs from what’s left of Katrina. There are fresh breezes that have knocked down a few branches. We’ll keep the windows open until the rains get heavy. We open more windows more while we’re at the camp. It’s a reminder that we’re in the woods, even if there’s a laptop and phone line in one corner of the room and a TV in the other corner, showing pictures of the devastation down south.

Autumn skies

Driving home in yesterday's sun and showers, I could see that the sky has taken its turn toward autumn. It is, recalling Emily Dickinson, that slant of light, and the cold air above that's a richer blue, even as the thunderclouds roil upwards. We'll get our share of hot days, to be sure, but they won't last. The shorter daylight hours can't sustain a heat wave. It's definitely fall on the way. You can see touches of red and orange on the swamp maples.

Sandra's driving to PEI today. She called from the border and reported a good trip so far. She'll visit with her parents and return with Marley on Monday. We'll spend the next two weeks at the camp. We have a day trip to Boston planned; we'll meet a long-time friend of Sandra's whose daughter is starting at BU. We also have one day planned in town for a doctor's appointment for me.

Work is going well. I made a presentation at my boss's staff meeting yesterday. For those who care about such things, I demonstrated how one can make a graphical representation of the topic layout in a FrameMaker document. I've been able to work full days this week for the time in quite a while.

Late yesterday I received a background clearance form from the recruiter who's been handling my latest job prospect. I'll take this as a sign of progress. I don't think that they'd be doing a background check if I hadn't passed the first couple of rounds of interviews.

The FDA is considering regulations regarding the use of leeches and maggots. Leeches, maggots, Washington bureaucrats: <Insert your own joke here.>

I bought my first $40 tankful of gas yesterday. When I was a teenager, the school lunch, a pack of cigarettes, and a gallon of gas were about the same price (close to 25¢). Kids would skip lunch and buy one or the other.

Outside the gas station, a guy had a guitar and small amp and was singing Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone, his voice as out of tune as his guitar.

What does this thing do?

So we now own a boat. It's a 17' Larson with a motor big enough for water skiing. We still have some paperwork to complete on the registration, followed by a trip to the Registry. (In order to obtain a registration, you're supposed to have a pencil tracing of the hull identification number. The ID number is etched faintly on an aluminum strip on the stern.)

We bought the boat in a private sale from a co-worker. He arranged for his dealer to clean and deliver the boat to us. Sandra waited at the camp all day on Friday while the dealer didn't deliver the boat (and didn't call to let us know) because the seller hadn't been paid the dealer for the cleaning. Finally, on Saturday morning, the dealer sent Homer and Jethro to deliver the boat. They got the truck stuck as they were pulling the empty trailer from the water. Jethro and I pushed the truck out, although Jethro was smoking a cigarette and doing mostly heavy leaning. After they left, we found something that looked suspiciously like a drain plug in one of the cup holders. In the meantime, we noticed that the bilge pump wasn't keeping up with the water coming in. We learned in phone call to the dealer that we needed to get the plug into place immediately or we'd ruin the motor and, that, yes, they took out the plug, but it wasn't their responsibility to put it back in. ("If you had purchased your boat from a reputable dealer, you wouldn't have had these problems." Anyone know of a reputable dealer?) We located the drain hole, put in the plug, and resumed pumping.

As the result of a labo(u)r dispute, the CBC has locked many of its workers. As a result, we have to turn to the BBC to learn about Canada's antics in the high arctic, sending two warships to assert its claim over an uninhabited island that's also claimed by Greenland (Denmark). The CBC web site in PEI hasn't provided news for several weeks. The locked-out employees are preparing plans for a strike web site. In the meantime, we can still rely on the Guardian ("Covers Prince Edward Island like the Dew") for our Island news. The first gay couple married on the Island last Friday.

After reading Pat Roberston's latest screed, that we should assassinate Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, I thought it important to find some sane resources on religion. The Theology Resources (via Lockergnome) site is one of the better ones that I've found, including lots of good reference material.

Last week we learned that the husband of a former co-worker is gravely ill. We use our spare moments to reflect on our gratitude for what we've received, knowing how quickly things can change.

To be treated by a nerd, you must think like a nerd

Yesterday The New York Times published an article how patients are treated in hospitals and other medical settings. When I met with my doctor yesterday afternoon, he said that the article had been forwarded to everyone in the clinic at least three times and was causing a lot of discussion among the staff. In brief, the article says that we're treated pretty much as meat with an insurance card.

Later in the day, I had another appointment with another doctor. I had to ask him three times to write down the name of a medication that we were considering so that I could do some research. Finally, when I provided an index card from the pack that I carry in my shirt pocket, he seemed pleased that he was dealing with a nerd like him and wrote both the brand and generic names of the medication.

The other day I mentioned that Joe and his friend, Seth, caught fish with buckets. They weren't just being resourceful. In the boathouse, we have some very old fishing poles, but no working tackle. The next time we go to Wal-Mart, we'll pick up a cheap rod, reel, line, and hook, nothing stylish like this. We might even get licenses. A friend used to promote fishing as a way to serenity, only occasionally interrupted by the actual catching of fish.

During the overnight, the BBC had a story about the 400th anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote. Earlier in the year Venezuela gave away thousands of free copies of the book to mark the event. One of the points that I learned in college, and which was discussed in this radio piece, was the pronunciation of the title. Most often, we pronounce it Don Ki-ho-ti. Even the Spanish speakers pronounced it this way. There is, however, some evidence that Cervantes pronounced Kwix-oat. We use the word quixotic, for example. Some citations even have it as Don Quijote. Y'see, if you give academicians something like this to fuss about, they'll leave you alone for quite a while.

You can now write blogs from Microsoft Word and post them to Blogger with a new Word plug-in. I'll stick to the web interface for now. Word is too slow and bloated for quick notes such as these, IMO. Also, I can't imagine that all of that Word-generated HTML can be healthy for Blogger's diet.

I have a second interview this morning. This one will be by telephone with the manager in White Plains. The challenge will be finding a place where I can talk freely. Conference rooms are hard to find on short notice. I may have to hide in plain sight and take the call on my cell phone while I'm in the cafeteria or outside at one of the picnic tables.

My current job is good and, if there was an opportunity to stay with it as a permanent employee, I would stay. I'm not chasing a lot of job leads at this point and so don't need a subterfuge like this to make it look like I'm doing real work.

The start of the season of wood

The air is cool this morning. Someone in the neighborhood has a wood fire going. Which reminds me that I need to order some wood for next year. The prices on seasoned wood are jumping up along with the prices for home heating oil. I'm hoping that the prices for green wood won't be climbing as much, but our wood guy is having to pay a lot more for fuel when he cuts and delivers. Mike delivered a half-truck load to the camp - oak and maple that will be good for sauna.

This installment of "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" comes from NPR's Talk of the Nation. Last week, they had a segment about great car chases. (Bullitt and Blues Brothers naturally were among the favorites.) Several minutes were devoted to playing clips from the movies. On the radio.

Elvis left the building on this date in 1977. As I mentioned on his birthday, my favorite material is the kind of backstage mix of rockabilly and gospel that formed the foundation of his music. When he was in that element, he was never better. So, if you see him pumping gas someplace, don't ask for Vegas show tunes. Ask for 'Brown-Eyed Handsome Man' or 'Peace in the Valley.' You'll get an earful that'll last a long time.

If cats want to travel, they get to stay in luxury. For dogs, it's the same old story: pack in, pack out.

Ye shall be fishers of fish

The party on Saturday was a fine one indeed. It was hot, so everyone stayed near or in the water as much as they could.

All of us like our toys, be it Xbox, iPod, power boats, or whatever, but it's good to be reminded that we can be delighted by nature as well. We have wild blueberries growing on our shore. During the party Sandra and I swam the shore with Tess and Krista and ate blueberries until we were blue in the teeth. Joe and his friend, Seth, stayed overnight on Saturday. The next morning, we had blueberry pancakes made with the wild blueberries. After breakfast, they went down to the water with the leftover hot dog and hamburger rolls to feed the fish. Using just a couple of buckets, they caught seven fish, kivvers and one small bass. The fishermen in the boat out in the cove, with their fancy lures and depth finders, laughed in disbelief.

Job leads seem to come in bunches. Over the weekend, a friend sent me a referral regarding prospects at a large computer company. In addition, my automated searches turned up a couple of interesting prospects, each at companies where I know at least one person.

The weekend mail brought news that a former manager, who moved to Seattle last year to work at Amazon, has retired. He's seeing the sights of the Northwest and enjoying the leisurely life.

The big European mobile phone company, Vodafone, is onto something with their new product called Vodafone Simply. They have designed a simpler interface for their mobile phones, using text instead of cryptic icons to indicate when a text message has arrived, when the battery is low, or if you have a good signal. Although they don't really say so in their promotional materials, they're targeting the older market. This service is not available in the U.S. yet. Vodafone owns about 45% of Verizon Wireless, so we might see something before too long.

If you have to check the spelling on this word, you're either not comfortable using it or you're way too comfortable.

Big thunderstorms rolled through the state yesterday afternoon and evening. We were spared the worst, but many towns lost trees and limbs and were flooded. This morning, cool fresh air is filling the house.

The skies are alive

Today's interview went well. The hiring manager said that I was an excellent candidate. She'll set up a second round of telephone interviews for next week. (The rest of the team is in White Plains, New York.) The project feels a lot like the Rational Suite team that I joined several years ago. For the first month or two, I would spend a couple of days each week in White Plains; the rest of the time, I'd have an office locally.

In the meantime, a few interesting problems landed on my desk - accessing the Windows registry from a script and helping a customer with a problem.

Tonight is the night for the Persied meteor showers. We will have hazy and cloudy skies so the viewing won't be good. One night about 20 years ago, Sandra and the boys met me at Logan Airport when I was returning from a business trip. We drove to Prince Edward Island through the night. In the dark skies of northern Maine, the sky was alive with meteors.

Mike's construction business has a web site.

The weather remains hot and will get hotter still over the weekend. A good time for a party at the camp tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Joe. Happy Birthday, Marian.

Getting things done

Last night I received a call from a recruiter regarding a permanent job. The position is a senior individual contributor on a high-visibility project. (The CEO of the company follows the project closely.) I have an interview with the hiring manager tomorrow morning. I'll trust that the process will lead me to the right decision.

Today's automated search for a documentation position turned up this one:

Position: Software/Firmware Developer
Location: Gardner, MA (MUST BE OKAY WITH LOCATION TO APPLY!!!)

I was talking with a couple recently about some ways to help ensure that their teenagers were using the computer and Internet properly. One way was to have the computer in an open part of the house. The parents agreed that it was a good idea. Until they could move the computer, however, they found another approach. The father was keeping the keyboard and mouse in the back of his truck, at least until school starts.

It's been easy to get overwhelmed by my assignments lately. I've taken to writing things on index cards and adding a time estimate for each task. If it's less than five minutes, I'll try to complete it then and there. If it's less than 15 minutes, I'll prioritize it and put it in a queue. If it's more than 15 minutes of work, I'll try to break it into 15-minute chunks and schedule those. My desk has the look of a large ransom note, but the system seems to be working.

give(peace(chance(1)));

When I was traveling a lot, I would usually take the red-eye flight home from the west coast. I had a small MP3 player that held two hours of music. Most of the time, I listened to Buena Vista Social Club. Ibrahim Ferrer, who died last Saturday, was featured on the Buena Vista recording. What I know of Spanish wouldn't get me a shoe shine, but no matter. His smooth, rich tenor voice will always remind me of a ride home, half asleep in the darkness, in the sky.

Today's automated job search for a technical documentation position brought a listing for an Explosive Inspector. It reminds me of the bomb squad t-shirt that read, "If you see me running, try to keep up."

Here's some interesting summary findings about stress and how it affects the brain and other parts of the body.

Our Middle East policy, written as a UNIX shell script, reminds us, as always, to read the fine manual.

Chain saws and the Eucharist

On Saturday we went to the funeral of our co-worker's husband, mentioned here last Monday. The church was full. The evening before, winds from a severe thunderstorm had uprooted trees and broken branches throughout the area. So, while the mourners gathered for the funeral Mass on that warm summer morning, the rest of the town was cleaning up, cutting away the broken limbs and dragging brush to the roadside for the chippers. After the Mass, we went the airport to pick up Mike and Lynn.

M&L had a wonderful time, meeting people, seeing sights. We dropped them off at their house where they could exchange cuddles and kisses with their children and then we went off to the camp. We were tired from the week and it was barely dark when we went to bed.

There was an interesting, if somewhat flawed article in yesterday's BostonWorks about depression and work. It's flawed because some of the facts about depression aren't presented quite right. The article claims that 15% of clinically depressed people commited suicide; it's more likely that 15% attempt suicide. The author also mixes up anxiety attacks with depression; they are related, but separate illnesses. The article cites a book named Working in the Dark: Keeping Your Job While Dealing With Depression, which I have ordered.

Anyway, it's an interesting piece, made more so for me because I had a chat with my manager about my health last week. I needed to have that talk because my health was starting to have an affect, at least from my perspective, on my ability to do my work. He was very supportive and assured me that my performance was still what he was expecting of me. That was encouraging. When I look back at my time at my previous, I can see that I was starting to go into a skid during my last couple of years there. I made some bad decisions and dug myself into a few holes. Had I known and been able to talk about it, I might have saved my manager and myself some embarrassment.

In one more example of Google not being like the rest of us, think about what Google expects of its chef the next time you go to lunch at your place of employment. BTW, C|Net got into some trouble with Google for this story

I was working at a diner on August 8, 1974 when Richard Nixon announced his resignation. The restaurant, which would normally be fairly busy, was empty, except for the two waitresses, the dishwasher, and yours truly. We listened on the radio as this Shakespearean character stepped from the stage, an odd, misshapen, seemingly friendless man who could see poetry in the histrionics of Mao and Zhou.

That was the week that was ...

and what a week it was.

Sandra kept a careful journal that she'll share with Mike and Lynn when they return from their week-long trip to Ireland, but, in sum, we kept our promise. There were six kids at the start of the week at the beginning of the week and there are six kids at week's end. We spent five nights at their house and were wide-eyed with wonder as the household whipped around us. We got to know little Cassandra, what made her happy and what made her annoyed. Matt and Joe started football practice, Michael is in weight-training after work each day, and Krista and Tess stayed with friends for most of the week. All the while, the supply depot kept churning food and milk and clean clothes. At a minimum, Sandra estimated, there were two loads of laundry a day and we never had a full complement of kids in the house for a whole day. It was a blessing to be in the middle of a whirlwind of energy and love and fun and humor.

While Mike and Lynn were in Ireland, they hung out with Paul Hill, the story whose incarceration was told in the movie In the Name of the Father. M&L will have other stories to bring back as well, but we knew that they'd befriend all whom they'd meet.

In the "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" Department: a recent edition of the The Connection radio show had, as its featured guest, Marcel Marceau. In what I can only guess is an unrelated event, The Connection is going off the air today.

A tragedy wide and deep

Last night the husband of a co-worker and friend died of a heart attack. He was a young man. Please give someone you love a hug and think of a young woman who has lost her husband and girl who has lost her father and friends who have lost their friend.

2005 Irish Ploughshares in showrooms today

We don't get much good news these days, so we should celebrate when we can. The decision of the IRA to put its arms beyond use is a great one. It doesn't wipe clean the misery caused by the decades of terrorism nor does it ensure justice for people of Ulster, but it's a start. More than 3000 people have been killed in the name of Jesus. It was brave of the IRA to make a step toward peace.

There is some interesting research news out of Harvard Medical School, supporting earlier work that indicated that the prefrontal cortex is one of the areas of the brain most affected by depression. This may lead to treatments that are faster-acting and more specific for each patient.

Twenty or so years ago, the computers we used (VAX/VMS) had a program called Phone. With Phone, you could send a brief message to another who was logged in. Almost no one used it. It was intrusive when you were logged in and useless when you weren't. We preferred email. Roll the calendar ahead a couple of decades. We still prefer email, we of a certain age, at least that's what the polls tell us. Young people like instant messaging, which is basically Phone with baggy shorts, a hat on sideways, and a skateboard.