Hello, Rangoon!

It's probably not a bad idea to have a reference source such as Wikipedia or the CIA Factbook handy when watching the news. As we learn about the protests in Burma/Myanmar, we also learn that each media outlet has a policy regarding the name of that country. Using the name Myanmar implies that we believe that the junta in charge of the country has enough legitimacy to change the country's name. Naturally, the U.S., most of its allies, and many publications use Burma. In almost all cases, there's some qualification such as "The country formerly known as Burma" or "the country now known as Myanmar."

This is not all that uncommon, differing names for people and places. The capital of Finland, for example, is Helsinki, except in Swedish, where Helsingfors prevails. A few decades ago, China (once known as Cathay) changed the transliteration of many names, giving us Mao Zedong instead of Mao Tse-tung and Beijing instead of Peking. And, if then there's what's-his-name, the guy who heads up Libya.

So, now, Duane Ingalls Glasscock (RealAudio link) have to sign on with the cry, "Hello, Yangon!"

Ghoti

More commonly heard as fish:

gh as in enough
o as in women
ti as in vacation

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge"
- Bertrand Russell, philosopher (1872-1970) via

Peace Day - September 21

Peace Day - September 21

RIP TJL

AskTog: How to Publish a Great User Manual

This is what I did/do/will do/have done for a living. Well, not necessarily write great user manuals, but you get the idea. This is a classic essay on what goes into good technical documentation - how you think about the user, not just an explanation of features.

AskTog: How to Publish a Great User Manual

hings Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age

A whole bunch of years ago, a friend remarked, "When Mozart was my age, he was dead for two years."

Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age

Links we did not click

In Gardner, you remember

As many of you know, I was born in Gardner, a city of about 20,000 people in north central Massachusetts. Once a major manufacturer of furniture, its nickname is the Chair City. (Here is an overview of the city's furniture history.) When I was in college, I wrote a column titled Chair City Journal and gave my senior honors thesis the same name. I worked for a short time in a furniture factory. I still have a scar on the back of my leg from the time when I walked off the edge of a loading platform.

Many of the furniture factories are closed now, the businesses moving to the American south in the 60s and 70s. Half of the stores in downtown are empty. The list of departed businesses is long - Goodnow-Pearson's department store (where you could preview 45s in a listening booth) , Robillard's pharmacy, Newberry's, the Orpheum theater, a Rexall drug store, the A&P grocery store.

In the 60s or early 70s, a strip mall opened on the south side of town. One of the anchors was Rich's, a discount department store. The chain went under and the Gardner store closed in 1997. Yesterday's Gardner News carried this front-page, above-the-fold picture.

Penn and Teller on Alternative Medicine (video, language NSFW)

MilkandCookies - Penn and Teller Bullshit: Alternative Medicine

Send this guy a Massachusetts driver's license

London Free Press - Local News - Cereal-eating driver cited in 3-car collision

via Fark

The return of 'oop time

The temperature found its way to the 30s last night and will again tonight. It's time to bring the wood hoop up from the cellar, place it in the family room, and fill it with firewood. Done, done, and done. Some parts of the state had a stab of frost, but we're not there yet.

So, it's 'oop time, as in wood hoop, not basketball. We're only in the second week of football season. Last night, we went to grandson Mike's football game. Because his high school's new athletic field is not yet finished, the team had to play a home game in Gardner. They won. Mike scored a touchdown, although the newspaper credited the score to his brother, Matt. (They spelled our last name correctly. Go figure.)

We sat in the stands and alternately watched the game and the other show around us. We'd forgotten that, for high school kids, going to a high school football game is so much less about the game and more about all the other kids. See and be seen. Parading to and from the snack bar. The girls were wearing sleek, tight, colorful jeans and jackets, looking stylish beyond their years. The boys bounced around in over-sized sweats, alabaster gangstas from the exoburbs.

Researchers are reporting that married couples who don't have children at home are less likely to be involved with family, friends, and community than their single counterparts. (The Roman church has been using this point for centuries in their justification for clerical celibacy.) We've lived in this neighborhood for more than 25 years. There are just a handful of neighbors, fewer than 10, who would recognize us or we them if we met some place away from our homes. It's not that we're not nice people. Rather, we keep to ourselves because we like each other's company.

To have us, then, out past 10 o'clock on a chilled, blustery Saturday night is remarkable indeed, a change as noteworthy as the change of season itself.

If you have a dog (and a job) ...

Today is Take Your Dog to Work Day

Blame Bullwinkle

Global Warming Fears: Norway's Moose Population in Trouble for Belching - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

I'm not looking for work right now, but ...

I'm not looking for work right now, but I continue to receive job listings. Chief Suitability Officer?

Special Projects Idea Generator

Need a name for your project? Need to add a couple of bullet points to your mission statement? Help is on the way with the Special Projects Idea Generator.

Via The Generator Blog.

Joint Astronomy Centre - Birthday Stars -

The light from what star began its journey on the day that you were born: Joint Astronomy Centre - Birthday Stars

Joe Gregorio | BitWorking |

Joe Gregorio | BitWorking | Nobody goes there anymore

http://bitworking.org/news/231/Nobody-goes-there-anymore

Good hearing starts with good listening

Last week, I met with an ENT doctor and then an audiologist to discuss hearing aids. (Feel free to post your jokes about hearing loss in the Comments section.) I've had hearing problems for 20-or-so years, primarily in my right ear, to the point of having surgery in the mid-90s. The surgery didn't improve my hearing; it seemed to slow the decline for a while. My hearing tests show a notch at 1kHz, just at the start of the range of the spoken voice. Conversations are important, so to stay on the right side of people, I have to stay on the right side of people.

In order to provide the power and signal processing that I need, the aid that I will need (we're planning for just one ear for now) is somewhat large, visible, and dorky. As if I should suddenly be concerned about looking dorky. This article shows that some manufacturers are trying to bring a sense of style to hearing aids.

Some of us, irrespective of our quality of hearing, are temperamentally inclined not to pay attention to what's going on around us. No hearing aid is going to fix that. Being hard of hearing isn't the problem; it's being hard of listening. A bunch of years ago, I was talking excitedly with a friend, a minister from another church, about a new insight I'd recently gained. Listening, I said, was more important than talking. I talked about this for about 10 minutes. It was only as I driving home that I realized that I hadn't asked her a single question.

The personality of a good worker

This article, from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, describes the way that employers use personality tests to screen job candidates. Now, it's a good idea for everyone if a candidate is a good fit for a job and for the organization. I've been in several situations where I had a job that was well-suited for my skills and interests, but where the management or other parts of the corporate culture had very different ways of working.

I also have a lot of skepticism about standardized tests. When I was a kid, my mother took me to Boston for a series of aptitude tests. I learned that I should be an accountant. I also learned that, even though I am right-handed, I have better dexterity with my left hand than with my right. My highest SAT score was in math. That would probably explain my first-semester A in college algebra; we can blame the second-semester F on the 60s.

In this morning's mail, I saw read about a couple of writing jobs with a former company. Of course I'm not ready to go back to work, but it's nice to think about. It's good to be able to read a job description and know what they're talking about it and know that I've done that work in the past. The underlying concepts of technical writing - topic-orientation, structured authoring, single sourcing, internationalization and localization, and concurrent development - haven't fundamentally changed in the last 20-25 years. We have new words, products, and methodologies, but we're still trying to solve the same problems - how do we describe complex products and tasks, do so quickly and well, meeting aggressive release schedules, and, while we're at it, make it easy to produce Korean and French versions at the same time.

Most folks don't get into trouble at jobs because they don't have the knowledge or skills to make it happen. In my experience as an employee and as a manager, troubles usually come from instincts in collision. Aspects of our personality makes us unwilling or unable to do the job that we have in front of us. It comes back to personality. Now, if there just was a way for us to know if our personalities are a good match for a job. Oh, yeah, right.

Cue "Ain't Misbehavin'"

Fats Waller - Aint Misbehavin'

Sandra's visiting her parents in PEI for a few days, celebrating her mother's birthday. She flew to Charlottetown yesterday, enjoying the non-stop flight from Boston. The weather at the Island is, as Sandra put it, "heavenly." Woody was cooking steaks on the grill for their supper.

Marley and I have had a quiet time, watching a bit of the Red Sox game on TV and turned in early. This afternoon, we'll go to the camp and spend the night. Mike and Adam and their families will be at the camp as well.

If the skies are clear tonight, we should be able to see the Perseid meteor showers. With luck, we might also catch a glimpse of the shuttle and International Space Station; both are expected to be visible around 9:40 PM (EDT). You can find out more about the shuttle, space station, and other stuff flying around the sky at this NASA web site.

YouTube - Dick Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire

YouTube - Dick Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire
(via)

If you lived here and had a degree in the library arts, here's what you'd make

DOL WHD: Minimum Wage Laws in the States

Why constant complaining about a bad job makes it worse

Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplace

Where the real infrastructure failings are

While holding great reverence for those who were killed or injured in the Minneapolis bridge collapse, let's not forget the many thousands who die each year because of the lack of preventative health care. Last year, during my annual physical, my doctor noticed a mole that looked suspicious. It turned out to be malignant melanoma. I had the malignancy removed and now have follow-up inspections twice yearly. Without a good health plan, it's doubtful that any of that could have happened in time.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Overheard in the Office | When Good Deeds Become Career-Limiting

Overheard in the Office | When Good Deeds Become Career-Limiting

Wet, wild, and wonderful

Here are the photos from our whitewater rafting trip in celebration of Sandra's birthday last Friday.

Great Googly Moogly

My Way News - Berlin Names Street After Frank Zappa

BTW, the title comes from one of FZ's tunes. See this article for more info.

Pope to world:i m n ur fone

Archdiocese Offers Daily Text Messages From The Pope - The Huffington Post

Monster to Cut 800 Jobs

As the folks at Fark.com noted, wouldn't it be nice if there was an online service where out-of-work people could post their resumes
Monster to Cut 800 Jobs; 2nd-Quarter Profit Drops.

In case you didn't know, ...

Howstuffworks "How Swearing Works"

Is there anything that the intertubes can't do?

I guess that it's a good idea that the Massachusetts house voted to outlaw Internet hunting (Mass. House Votes To Ban Internet Hunting - News Story - WCVB Boston), but I also have to give a tip of the hat to the folks who figured out how to do this. It's no small accomplishment that they'd be able to set up guns and cameras in places where people would find something to hunt, hook that apparatus to a web application, and let people hunt from the comfort of their own homes.

Note: I spent a few minutes looking around for a site that offered this service, but wasn't able to find one. It looks as though some of the sites that might be gateways are using IP filtering to block access from certain geographical regions. It's not worth the additional time to dig deeper.

MilkandCookies - George Carlin: Who owns you?

Those of you who didn't know friend Don - think George Carlin. Sometimes, he was really funny. Sometimes, he was really serious and even scary. And, one time, Don burned so hot that he burned himself up.

It's ok to be dorks, but do we have to bring our dogs into it?

Techie Diva's Guide to Gadgets : Transform Your Dog Into a Walking Jukebox

Dept. of Copy Editing. - Show me the way to go home

From the The Scout Report -- July 27, 2007, a part of the Internet Scout Project:

1. Open Architecture Network [Macromedia Flash Player, pdf]
http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/

The Open Architecture Network site starts things off with a bold and
passionate statement: “Le Corbusier had it all wrong”. It’s definitely a
good way to get visitors’ attention upon entering the site. The Network is
an online, open source community which seeks to improve living conditions
through innovative and sustainable design. On the site, visitors can share
their design ideas and plans, review and comment on posted designs, and also
collaborate with each other. Visitors will no doubt get exited about the
“Projects” section, which is both intellectually stimulating and well-
designed. Visitors can search the projects by status, region, location, or
theme, or they can also perform a keyword search as well. There are some
wonderful finds here, including a childcare school in Sri Lanka, a day
laborer shelter, and a “Doc-in-a-Box”, which is meant to serve as a mobile
health care center. [KMG]

Happy Birthday, Sandra

We hope you'll enjoy your day of whitewater rafting.

YouTube - Helsinki Complaints Choir

Eight-and-a-half minutes of complaints in Finnish. (But, they have subtitles.)

YouTube - Helsinki Complaints Choir

Project Cartoon: How Projects Really Work (version 1.5)

In case you wondered, ...
Project Cartoon: How Projects Really Work (version 1.5)

Careers: If Only You Could Work Here

Satchel Paige often said, "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." This Fast Company story, with the embedded video, pretty much fills up the rear-view mirror with a different way of looking at work.

Careers: If Only You Could Work Here

I wonder if the new edition of Framemaker will include a grammar checker

-from the Adobe Technical Communication blog

Aerosmith on PEI

54 arrested at P.E.I. concert featuring Aerosmith: "the concert could be the largest single-day event in the Island's history,"

152 - A Map of the Truelove River « strange maps

The course of true love is rarely direct and smooth, but the trials are well worth it.

152 - A Map of the Truelove River « strange maps

ScienceDaily: Architects Not Teachers Caused School Failures

Friend eba and I I have a quite a few discussions about architecture and its impact on people. Mostly, we've talked about information architecture - how to structure information about a product or service so that it can be most readily used by people who are trying to get something done. Those discussions have wandered into the area of physical architecture - how to create buildings and spaces that help people get done what they want to get done. A well-designed place can make a big difference in how well people work, socialize, learn, or play badminton.

This University of Manchester (UK) study, ScienceDaily: Architects Not Teachers Caused School Failures, points to some specific problems that result from design constraints that were imposed on architects of school buildings during World War II.

Dept. of Medications: a modest proposal

One of the hot topics around here is casino gambling. The Wampanoag tribe in southeastern Massachusetts, who recently received designation as an official Native American tribe by the federal government, is in negotiations with the town of Middleborough regarding the construction of a casino-resort complex in the town. According to the supporters, everybody wins - the tribe, the town, the state, vendors, job-seekers, hookers, everybody. We will, for the time being, set aside Mario Puzo's observation that the lights, the glamor, the fancy building in Las Vegas were purchased with losers' money.

The planned casino is a 100-or-so miles from two other casinos in Connecticut - Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. There's some concern that having three casinos so close to one another will just make smaller pieces of a fixed-sized pie. How much gambling, after all, can southern New England support?

Enter science. Recent television ads for Mirapex, a treatment for restless leg syndrome and Parkinson's, have noted some interesting side effects. The following clip comes from the manufacturer's web site:

MIRAPEX Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): "There have been reports of patients taking certain medications to treat Parkinson’s disease or RLS, including MIRAPEX, that have reported problems with gambling, compulsive eating, and increased sex drive. (Emphasis mine.) It is not possible to reliably estimate how often these behaviors occur to determine which factors may contribute to them. If you or your family members notice that you are developing unusual behaviors, talk to your doctor."

OK, all medications have side effects, ranging from seizures, increased suicide risks, and treatment-emergent insomnia, to hirstutism. Few drugs, however, have the potential to induce the kind of behaviors that would make a casino successful.

So, it seems like a good idea for the tribe or the town to set up a clinic in or near the casino, a clinic that would specialize in the 'treatment' of RLS. It might even be a good idea to distribute coupons in the region's newspapers for free samples.

YouTube - ethan zuckerman history of the internet

The history of the Internet in five minutes: YouTube - ethan zuckerman history of the internet. Even before the development of the World Wide Web or the Internet, people wanted to use computers to communicate with one another, via email, chat, games.

It's not all about him.

While watching President Bush's press conference, I was struck again by a couple of characteristics of his public speeches:

1. He uses the word "I" an awful lot. While it's good to know that he puts himself in the middle of the discussions and actions, rather than pointing to an amorphous government, it seems that he's personalized it too much. It's as though he's trying to convince us (or himself) that he is important, relevant.
   
2. He uses the phrase "hard work" an awful lot. "It's hard work." "This is hard work." It's not even used as an excuse, but as a statement that he is, in fact, working hard.
   

I don't care to psychoanalyze him too much, but this sounds like an employee pleading to a boss. "I worked hard on this TPS report. It may not look like much, but I worked hard. You've got to give me credit for that." It can also sound like a son who is trying to prove himself to his father. "I worked on this really hard."

And, while it should surprise no one that he would avoid answering difficult questions, I think that the President took it to a new level. His response to a question regarding Michael Chertoff's "gut" feeling about a terrorist attack this summer wandered further than Omar the Tentmaker riding a drunken camel.

One final thing. He was asked how it was that we wound up so ill-prepared for the post-Saddam challenges, he first said that he had asked Gen. Tommy Franks and others on the Joint Chiefs if they had sufficient soldiers and materiel. They all responded in the affirmative. We have since learned that they were gravely wrong. So, now, the President exhorts to trust the commanders in the field to tell us what's going on in Iraq and when it will be safe to leave. "Trust, but verify," Ronald Reagan used to say.

YouTube - DEC - Glimpse of the Future, 1994

This slideshow provides images of some of the web pages that were available in 1994. My first experience with the web was in the autumn of 1993 when someone posted information to our internal collaboration forum (Notes) about a browser (Mosaic) and server. As soon as my jaw returned from the floor, I began following links as quickly as I could find them.

YouTube - DEC - Glimpse of the Future, 1994

Let's hear it for mediocrity

We watched the Boston Pops Fourth of July hooptedoodle on TV. Liberty Mutual was one of the sponsors. Their tag line was, "Yes, there's an insurance company that's as responsible as you are."

Now, why would I ever want to do business with a company that is as responsible as I am? Ever! That's like saying I want to take singing lessons from someone who sings as well as I do. If a company can't do it better than I can (and how hard would that be?), then we'd both better just keep walking.

Commuting

I had to come into town for a medical appointment and so left the camp around 6:00. In years past, I would often leave the house at six and take my place among the sedans and SUVs for the march eastward to the high-tech centers along Routes I-495 and 128. This commute, however, put me in the middle of a caravan of pickup trucks, box trucks, and utility vans. Different people going to different places, the high-tech commuters barely aware that the other wave of commuters exists, the other wave that builds their houses, fixes their plumbing, exterminates their insects.

Aw, geez. What's he done

Aw, geez. What's he done now? Again with the Blackberry? Call it assistive technology or goofy, it's been the best way to track appts 'n tasks.

In spite of the gray beard, I'm Generation Y.

What generation are you part of, really? Take this test. » Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk

"And, remember, you'll save money."

The old Spag's buildings on Rt. 9 in Shrewsbury will likely be torn down and the property developed for residential and retail use.

In 2002, six years after Anthony "Spag" Borgatti's death, Building 19 bought the Spag's business. Jerry Ellis, owner of Building 19, said, “It just didn’t work; not everything does." Because the business was neither Spag's nor a true Building 19, both groups of customers stayed away in droves.

Spag's was, in marketing parlance, a destination. In the 80s, my father went on a canoing trip in northern Maine. When the guide saw the Massachusetts license plate, he asked my father, "You shop at Spag's?" The guide and his family would drive the 300 or so miles to Spag's a few times a year and load up their cars with camping gear, laundry supplies, and Cheetos.

It was nearly impossible to buy only the thing you came for. I'd go to Spag's to get Wolf's Head motor oil for my three-cylinder, two-stroke, mix-oil-with-the-gas Saab and return with the oil, writing pads, sneakers, a couple pounds of coffee, and a catnip mouse.

My favorite suspenders, the red paisley ones, cost me five bucks at Spag's.

While waiting for the papers

Our newspaper carriers are having a tough time. Here it is, whatever time it is, and the papers still aren't here. Weekdays, we get two papers and on the weekend, three. If I don't get to the papers first thing in the morning, the papers wind up on my reading stack, a pile of newspapers, magazines, and books. The bottom layer of my reading stack has turned to coal.

Friend Patti brought my attention to a charming time-sink called Twitter. In brief, Twitter is a cross between blogging and instant messaging. It asks the basic question, "What are you doing?" The widget on the left side of this page shows what I'm doing now. You can also send and receive text-message updates via your cell phone. I can already hear the cries of "Can't we ever get away from the Internet?" Um, no. Even the Amish have a web site.

There is no sky in Ann Coulter's world

Ann Coulter vs. Elizabeth Edwards: Sparks fly after Coulter remark on terrorist assassination of John Edwards - On Politics - USATODAY.com: "On Monday, on ABC's Good Morning America, Coulter said: 'I've learned my lesson. If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.'"

Radio silence

In a protest against increased music royalty fees, a number of Internet radio broadcasts are observing a National Day of Silence by turning off their feeds today. A partial list of the participants is available at Kurt Hanson's Radio and Internet Newsletter site.

Radio, more than TV, newspapers, or other media, is about sounds from far away, often in the night. While listening to WKBW (Buffalo, New York) after dark in the wintertime in the 50s, I'd learn about lake-effect snow in towns such as Lackawanna, Cheektowaga, and North Tonawanda. For a while, I was more familiar with these names than with the names of Boston suburbs.

So, for several reasons, today would not be a good day to purchase a Tivoli Networks radio, either a table-top or portable that plays Internet broadcasts using a Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection.

• The aforementioned day of silence.
  
• The radio isn't for sale yet.
• We have too many radios already. We average slightly more than one radio per room at home, at the camp, and in our cars, not counting the shows and podcasts that I download to my iPod.
  

Of course, all of our radios are tuned to the left end of the FM band, 91.9 and lower, where the public, college, and other non-commercial stations hang out. I'll spare you my usual rant about the dreadful state of commercial radio and just ask that, if you know of a good radio station anywhere, please let me know. By good, I mean stations that treat listeners with a bit of respect, that are locally-owned or listener-sponsored, and who could mix Mozart, John Coltrane, Jefferson Airplane, and a few performers I've not heard before. Give the keys for all parts of the music library to the DJs and listen to what happens.

Office pilfering starts at the top

Obvious. Paging Capt. Obvious.

A recent study reports that 20% of employees admit to stealing office supplies from their companies. The study further concludes that 25% of people who bring home $75K or more admit to bring home stuff, more than twice the rate of pilfering among the lower paid workers.

More than a dozen years ago, Scott Adams published a book that pretty well summed up workers' relationships to the supply cabinet - Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies.

What color is the sky in Dick Cheney's world?

In response to a request from the National Archives (per an order signed by President Bush), Vice-President Dick Cheney refused to provide information because, according to the Federal Times, Cheney argued that “the Vice President’s Office is not an entity within the executive branch.” (Cheney is claiming that he is president of the Senate and, therefore, not a member of the executive branch.)

Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution says: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term..."

Sic transit gloria transitus

The summer solstice arrived at 18:06 GMT today, 2:06PM EDT. In Oulu, where my mother's family came from, the sun will be up for 22 hours. Meteorological summer began on June 1^st, but the start of astrological summer is still special. (The English-language version of the Helsinki newspaper is taking its summer vacation now until the end of July.) The kids in town had their last day of school yesterday. Even for those of us who hear but a faint echo of "No more pencils..." can still look up summer as a big, empty canvas that we can paint with the mud on our feet.

Tomorrow's a marker day for me as well. Even though I stopped working in April, tomorrow is the official end of my employment at my former company. I miss some of the people and some of the work, but am certain that leaving was the right thing to do. And, looking to the horizon. I don't yet have a schedule or even a plan for returning to work. Getting there, in large part, depends on how we define what or where there is.

In the meantime, we have plenty to do, particularly in the cleanup in and around Huck's house. Each thing, at the house and at the camp, seems to have a story or pose an interesting question. Among the things that I meant to ask him:

Why is there a 2lb. coffee can on the wall the broom closet in the camp, held in place with three hefty screws? It's a handy place to put stuff, but screwing coffee cans t the wall certainly isn't going to put California Closets into Chapter 11.

What color is the sky in John Bolton's world?

Speaking about the U.S. obligation to assist refugees of the Iraq war, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton said:

"Our obligation was to give them new institutions and provide security. We have fulfilled that obligation. I don't think we have an obligation to compensate for the hardships of war.'' -- Operation Freedom From Iraqis - New York Times

J.R. shot Tony Soprano?

Along with this week's coverage of the final Sopranos episode and last week's unjailing/rejailing of Paris Hilton, many media outlets, notable Greater Boston, have had good discussions about the newsworthiness of these events and the general topic of the media's coverage of popular culture.

In 1980, I was editing the Saturday edition of a small, suburban newspaper. I had the first and second pages filled with local stories and a few wire service pieces. I had deliberately left out the UPI story about "Who Shot J.R.?" from the previous night's Dallas show. If anyone care about it, I reasoned, they would have watched the show or taped in on their Betamax.

The executive editor, who doubled as the sports editor, stopped by with the Friday night local sports articles, looked at the layout, and went bonkers. "You're leaving out the biggest story of the year," he shouted.

So, knowing the importance of the weekly paycheck, I found the executive editor's reasoning persuasive and made room for the J.R. story. I should note that I was making about $4.00/hour, close to what I could have made at the neighboring McDonald's. Every day, however, I had my name in the paper every day, spelled correctly and not in the police log. I even had a my picture above my occasional editorial column.

I'd probably make the same first decision again. Although I am a fan and a student of pop culture, these stories don't need to be everywhere all of the time. If I want the latest in sleazy intrigue, I don't turn to Jim Lehrer or our local weekly, The Landmark. Fox News Channel will certainly get me all that I need and can stand.

From backhoes to Bach

It was a day to stand watch with amazement as threads from long ago loop through each other and stretch on to the future. The day had three simple chores at my father's house - meet with the folks who'd be installing propane tanks, meet with the engineer who'd be designing the new septic system, and taking a carload of sauna wood from the basement to the camp. - followed by an evening of music at the annual piano recital.

And, here's how it went:

• The guy who'd be installing the propane tanks (with his grandson doing most of the heavy lifting) went to trade school with my father in the 30s. He still thought my father lived on Pine Street in Gardner, at my grandparents' home. I explained how this house came to be and how my grandparents moved next door in the early 60s.
  
• The guy with the backhoe would be digging the test holes for the septic system. I recognized the last name. He was a few years younger than me, but I knew his older brothers.
  
• I didn't know the engineer, but he had a Grateful Dead sticker on his truck. A woman from the engineering company had married into a large family who shared a camp at Queen Lake. We often see her husband paddling his kayak around the lake.
• The fellow who is refinishing the floors in the house is a long-time friend of Mike's and, in the antediluvian era, was a debating opponent of mine when we were in high school.

I watched as the backhoe operator dug three big holes in the front yard, where the septic system has been. It may be too wet there. (For readers who don't own property in Massachusetts, this work is required to meet Title V requirements. Title V specifies how water and sewer systems must be built to ensure clean water in neighboring wells and in other water sources. When you sell a house, not only must the system pass inspection, but you must guarantee that it will work for one year.) Plan B led to three big holes in the woods behind the house. As I watched the operator dig three more holes, I studied the pine trees that I used to climb as a kid. The trees are taller now and the lower branches have fallen away, so climbing would be tough. The trees are tall enough to block some of the sunlight in the winter, sunlight that my father used to keep his house warm.

Lots of people who can load and unload a truck full of wood after a day's work; some will even cut and split the wood as well. So, loading and unloading a Subaruful of wood shouldn't be front page news, but, for me, it was the mark of a good day. The wood that I brought to the camp will likely give us saunas for the rest of this year. The wood is split small and very dry, so we'll get good, hot saunas quickly.

The piano recital was held in the Town Hall, a classic New England building in the center of town. There were a couple dozen performers, hosted by their teacher. Tess and Krista delighted us with pieces from Scott Joplin while Mike lit up the hall with Mozart's Fantasia in D Minor.

A long time ago, I took a music appreciation course. The teacher, a woman, said that because men do better at math than women, they're more inclined to like Bach. Take that as you will. The only Bach piece played at the recital was by a young boy.

It's said that the mark of a truly cultured person is the ability to listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger. So, as we listen to one of students play Dance of the Hours by Ponichelle, I heard the words to Allan Sherman's Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh.

Do we need a stopwatch or a calendar?

It keeps getting easier for small businesses to put ads on cable television. As a result, you can hear statements such as this, from an auto repair business in Worcester:

Guaranteed fast service, no matter how long it takes.

That turbulence in the water

Fish in Massachusetts are trembling. Sandra and I recently picked up our fishing licenses. They shall know us by our worms.

Or, we might use lures. Or, as the guy at the Phillipston chicken barbecue said, shiners.

The chicken barbecue on Saturday was a part of Phillipston's 50th country fair. We drove through frog-strangling downpours in Fitchburg on our way to the fair, arriving on the town common where not a drop of rain fell all day.

The flea market filled the gymnasium of the elementary school. There you could find Drydene machine lubricant, a rusty electric fence controller, and child car seats into which you could put a child you didn't like very much. There were several two-burner gas stovetops, scary contraptions capable of igniting a kitchen with just a crosswise glance. Still, there were plenty of fun and safe things as well. Most people found at least one thing worthy of purchase. One of the flea market coordinators had purchased and was wearing a beaded necklace that Sandra had contributed.


Mid-day, a pianist was happily playing ragtime tunes on an electric piano in the foyer of the church, the music filling the common from speakers on the front steps.

Inside the old church, quilters from the town and around hung samples of their work from the balcony railings. The quilts, nearly all hand-stitched, were bold and charming. Each had a story that described how and why the quilt was made.

The church had wooden pews, stained dark, with doors for each section. At one time, families would have their own reserved pews.

But, this was a story about fishing. I haven't been fishing in a very long time, since I was a kid and didn't need a license. Back then, the Gardner News published a chart that showed which days in the coming week would be good for fishing. It was about as accurate as an astrological chart, but it was easier to believe. I don't remember why I didn't continue fishing. The last that I remember was working on a horned pout that had swallowed the hook; I was stung a couple of times and fishing stopped being fun.

So, we'll try again. We'll have a family fishing derby this weekend in honor of Father's Day. We will have prizes for the most, least, largest, smallest, cutest, and ugliest fish caught. If we catch something edible, we'll figure how to eat it.

The Massachusetts Wildlife agency publishes a booklet to help us understand the fishing regulations and to know, in case we've forgotten, what a small-mouth bass or northern pike looks like. At the back of the booklet, they publish sunrise and sunset times for the year. (The one we received gave the times for Worcester along with offsets for different places in the state. Boston is about three minutes earlier and Pittsfield is about five minutes later.) For the next week, we'll have the earliest sunrises, about 5:10AM, EDT. The latest sunset, 8:28PM, occurs in late June into early July.

This just in.

It takes a big, fancy British medical journal to tell us that antidepressants don't help cancer patients who don't have depression.

Sometimes I sit and think. Sometimes I just sit.

With a strong, cool breeze and the temperature in the mid-40s, we need a fire in the stove this morning.

The birds and squirrels will eat as much bird seed as I offer. Our five feeders can hold about 40 pounds of seed and that can be gone in a day. Last weekend, I picked up some of Dave's private blend that includes the sweet smell of cherry bits. The seed is just about gone. Dave's feed doesn't seem to attract new birds, but makes the regular visitors happier.

I was able to get to Dave's because it was time for my annual trek back to my alma mater. The school has quite a few brand-name graduates. This year's commencement speaker was Patrick Fitzgerald, '82, the special prosecutor who brought the case against Scooter Libby.My work was off to the side, in a quiet room near one of the school's several chapels. As a result, I wasn't able to go to any of the other campus events, missing the opportunity to hear other alums and faculty, including one of my thesis advisers. Nevertheless, I was where I needed to be.

Yesterday, I attended an orientation session for the Stress Reduction program at the UMass Medical School. Since its inception in 1979, more than 16,000 people have gone through the program, including my mother, Jan, and friend Dan. Bill Moyers reported on the program in his 1993 report, "Healing and the Mind," and in this interview in Psychology Today. In brief, with the practice of meditation and the principle of mindfulness, one can learn new ways of understanding stress and the thoughts that accompany it.

The course starts in two weeks. The leader told us that we should plan for 45 minutes to an hour of homework every day. She also said that, because of other participants' allergies, we should not use perfume, deodorants, or after-shave lotions. No deodorant in the summer? We'll see how good an idea this is.

Oh, and there were Republicans on TV last night, 10 white guys incapable of answering a yes/no question with a yes or no. By the way, Gov. Romney, it's unalienable, not inalienable.

Canada's got a pretty good approach to this form of air pollution. You can't start campaigning until an election is officially called, giving you somewhere between 36 and 55 days in a federal election.

One more thing to frost your mini-wheats: Sen. Lynne Cheney, R-Wyoming?
(fifth story)

As my history professor used to say, ...

Every act is a political act and has political consequences.

Believe me. I tried to watch the Democrats' debate last night. I really tried. Each candidate wa given 60 seconds to give us slightly fresh answers to the stale questions that we have heard on every news and talk show for months. This format drives the wrong kind of behavior, rewarding people who think in small, tactical aphorisms. Even good Dennis Kucinich answered a question about counter-terrorism with a worn-out quote from Benjamin Franklin about security and personal freedom. We needed, instead, his ideas about how we should deal with the bad guys in our midst. After about 15 minutes, I switched channels and watched Larry the Cable Guy until it was time to go to bed.

Make way for donuts

We had another quick trip to PEI last weekend, a good trip, although exhausting. We learned that if we open the rear window on the driver's side, Marley would stick his head out and the good folks at Tim Horton's would give him a few Timbits.

Islanders, like most North Americans, are serious about donuts. A donut franchise, name not disclosed, has purchased a corner lot in Montague. One of the parcels was owned by Sandra's cousin; they're in the process of moving the house to a new location along the river.

But, the big news of the summer is that Aerosmith will play in Charlottetown on July 21.

A travel reminder for this summer: The state of Maine would much rather that you bring or buy food for your journey on the Maine Turnpike.

Shortly after we crossed the border into St. Stephens, we stopped at a roadside stand where a guy was selling fiddleheads. The sign said $3/bag, but all he had on his little folding table were $5 bags. He had to rummage around to find a smaller bag when Sandra insisted that she only wanted to pay the $3. Fiddleheads taste like small, green peppers stuffed with grass clippings. They can also carry toxins that can make you quite sick, as Sandra discovered.

Who would have thought that good coffee would be on the wrong side of the environmental movement? Increasingly, people are buying coffee that's packaged in aluminum, paper, or plastic bags, materials that don't have much of a second life. (As I've mentioned before, we've been buying our coffee from Equal Exchange for 10 or so years. Although they do good things on the coffee plantations, the coffee arrives in bags that are tossed when they're empty.)

A coffee bag can't match the utility of a humble Hills Bros. coffee can when you need help to prime a water pump. Dunno the age of the coffee can, but it came from a time when a one-pound can contained one pound of coffee.

It's OK, folks. We don't have to worry about electing a Mormon as our president. Mitt Romney shows that he's a regular guy.

Harvard recently hosted a forum on gender roles in higher education, particularly among the Ivy League schools. (Half of the Ivy League college presidents are female.) 'Course, in the photo, that accompanied the story in the Boston Globe, I first noticed that the participants are sitting in Nichols & Stone chairs, from Gardner.

Speaking of Gardner, the convenience store that's a part of the Gulf station on City Hall Ave. has a sign that says that a person cannot buy more than three cell phones from the store per day. Send their customers some of these.

A recent issue of the Raivaaja reported that Finland is less relevant to the United States these days, in large measure due to the end of the cold war. Finland, with its proximity to the Soviet Union, was an important part of the diplomacy of the time (and also a base for U.S. intelligence operations). The Finns aren't letting this get to them: they've sent in the clowns.

Ready for the world

The other day, Lynn called to ask if I would be able to babysit Cassie for a couple of hours. I said, "Yes," eagerly.

Cassie's 2^1/2. We had the Alladin video on, but it was a bit too intense to hold her attention. (The genie is the part that Robin Williams was born to play, so you'd better be ready. The would-be wiseguy parrot is, likewise, a perfect match for Gilbert Gottfried.) Soon, however, it was time to visit with Barbie.

There were lots of dolls in Cassie's room, along with the many accessories that bring a doll to life - houses, backpacks, blankets, and so on. Even the headless Barbie took her place among the pantheon of playthings. Listening to the creaks and cracks of my joints, I sat down on the floor with Cassie and played at playing with dolls.

A friend of mine refers to the young children in her family as "The Endorphins," a great, natural source of pain relief and joy. Me, too. I had a good time and hope that she did, too. Sometimes, grandparents think that they're being helpful when, in fact, they're scaring the kids.

Oh, about the picture. All of the kids have had fun playing with the stuff in my shirt pocket. Usually, they go for the red pen. This day, Cassie grabbed my pen and notebook, as if to say, "Look out, world. I'm watching you."

The color of the sky in Ann Coulter's world

If you scratch your head with your 9mm handgun before going into the school for your teaching job, you, IMO, should not have a permit for either a handgun or teaching: Teacher Arrested After Handgun Found In Car - Central Florida News 13

Unless you're in Texas: (Texas Governor Rick) Perry: Allow concealed handguns anywhere in Texas

Just another kilokilometer

If you ever hear us say "Road Trip!" please make sure that someone hides our car keys.

Google maps reports that it's 702 miles (1129.76 kilometers) from our house to the MacGregors' house on PEI. Going there, we have the energy of anticipation. On the return home, particularly after such a quick turnaround, Tim Horton's provides the spark.

On Friday we had an early (3 PM), very nice dinner at Whim Inn at Poole's Corner. Sandra remembered that she saw Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip at Poole's Corner during their visit to Prince Edward Island. The food was filling and comforting, just the stuff that weary travelers would enjoy. The restaurant is open year-round, but rooms won't be available for rent for another three weeks. Woody asked if the inn was for sale; the waitress said that it's always for sale.

Lobster season starts tomorrow (May 1st) on the east end of the island and run through the end of June. Traps are stacked high at the Cardigan harbor. Sandra will return in late May for the Cardigan lobster supper.

Leaving for home, we drove through a heavy rain until we were off the island. It was mostly cloudy, with alternating showers and breaks in the overcast. My favourite diner is Carman's in St. Stephen NB. This visit was disappointing. The breakfast food was good, but the service was lousy. We were there for more than an hour when we should have been in and out in 25 minutes. There are plenty of other good places on either side of the border, so it'll be a long before we return to Carman's.

I had a copy of Tom Friedman's latest book, The World is Flat, on my iPod. It's a compelling book, even if the style is kinda breathless. Every few hours we switched from the book to the radio news.

The house was in good order when we arrived home, spring in its full zest. The vitality is so compelling that we'll forgive the dandelion on the front lawn.

And so, it's back to what passes for normal. While I flipping through the old magazines in the hospital waiting room this morning, I learned that Meredith Vieira started her professional career at WORC in Worcester. I wonder if she still knows how to pronounce Worcester properly.

One of our favorite TV shows is Beat The Press, a review of media and journalism on Emily Rooney's Greater Boston. Because we were in PEI, we weren't able to watch the show at its appointed hour on Friday evening. I found a moderate successful workaround - downloading the video podcast and playing it on our laptop. I think that I have the plugs, cables, and pixie dust necessary to send the show from the laptop to our TV. The video worked OK, but I couldn't get the audio from the laptop to play through the TV's speakers. There's always one more gozinta, isn't there.

After the stars, before the sun

There's about an hour between first light and sunrise and, in that dim time, our caravan set off to PEI. We all remarked that there was a lot of traffic at the early hour. Traffic was light, but steady, until a midpoint between Portland and Augusta. There was, as we'd expect, more traffic on Route 2 at 5AM than at rush hour in Moncton.

Sandra drove her parents' Blazer and I drove our Subaru, Sandra in the lead. Our wagon is better suited for Marley. He was more pesty than usual, such that I needed to put the back seats upright and have him ride in the wayback for the last four hours of the trip.

Woody and Marian took turns as passengers in each car. We talked a bit, sharing observations of this ride and stories of trips past. In between stories, we listened to recorded books and the radio.

The weather was fine, the bright sun a problem in just a few places. There were patches of snow in the culverts from the Maine Turnpike to PEI. Just south of Bangor, an eagle circled overhead. There's an eagle preserve just past the Irving station in Calais, Maine; we saw a mother feeding eaglets in a tree-top nest. Along the Airline Route and beyond, farmers were burning their blueberry fields to make ready for this season's crop. The Airline Route, where there are more wheels on houses than on cars, was a gravel road when Woody was a child. Now it's well-paved with generous passing lanes on the hills.

We have our favorite and familiar stops along the way: the first rest area on the Maine Turnpike (near Kennebunk), several near Bangor/Brewer, the Irving station just outside of Calais, sometimes the duty-free shop at the border, either Tim Horton's or Carman's diner in St. Stephen, the Grey Fox just west of Magnetic Hill, and so on.

The Grey Fox is a large Irving truck stop atop a very breezy hill in Salisbury NB. The food and coffee are good and they sell an amazing array of strange stuff suitable for the road-weary trucker or the bored child. Even better, there's a Dairy Queen across the street. (Remember when you order your Blizzard that they use Smarties instead of M&Ms as the mix-in.)

When we used to have to take a ferry for crossing to the Island, family lore required that you pass 15 cars from the Elgin rotary to the port at Cape Tormentine. No more. We can drive at our leisure because the crossing is now by bridge. We had some excitement, nonetheless. We'd put three suitcases on top of the Blazer, held in place by rope and bungee cords. While on the road to Tormentine, the large yellow suitcase decided to take a different route and flew off the car and onto the road. I was driving a safe distance behind, but, because of traffic, I had nowhere to go but over the suitcase. Damage was minor, with just tire tracks on the suitcase. We met up with Sandra and Marian a few kilometers down the road. We made room for the three suitcases in the cars. We had good fun imaging that, had the suitcase opened, we might have had someone's underwear scattered across the road and newly-tilled potato fields.

The house is in pretty good shape. The house having settled over the years, the outside doors are sometimes difficult to open. Inside was nice and even better when with a fire in the wood stove. The bladder in the water tank developed a leak and needed replacement. The repair guy came out first thing this morning and quickly had water flowing in only the places that it should.

I did a bit of maintenance work on Marian's computer. (Anyone remember how much fun it is to download a Windows service pack on a dial-up connection?)

The Island is starting to get ready for the summer tourist season. Many seasonal businesses won't open until Mother's Day, but some can't wait. The sign in front of Gillis's drive-in restaurant, on the outskirts of Montague, says:

Mmm. Fries with gravy
Open April 26

What the yard brings

The back yard has dried out from last week's 5+" of rain, letting the ants rebuild their hills in the sandy soil.

From my grandmother's knitted, crocheted, woven, and sewn work, you'd never suspect that she had what she called arthuritis. (My father could, we as might suspect, be a bit of a pain at times.) She couldn't use the spring-loaded clothespins, relying, instead, on the push-on kind. We've inherited those clothespins and use them when we dry towels and such on clothesline in back near the wood pile.

One of my doctors remarked that, while I am out of work, one of his treatment goals for me is to ensure that I do not become a regular viewer of the Jerry Springer show. The only daytime TV that I watch is CNN and then only on days with significant news. Last week, for example, brought the tragedy at Virginia Tech and the Gonzales hearings, along with the ever-increasing death toll in Iraq that's become wallpaper for our news channels. (In another post, I'll collect my thoughts regarding TV, radio, print, and the web, looking at contemporary media through a McLuhan filter.)

So, instead of watching Wolf, I line up tasks that are well-defined, such that I know what to do, know how to do it, and can report on what I've done and how well I did it. My daily task list includes chores such as bring in firewood, make various phone calls, pick up clothes at the dry cleaner's shop, stuff like that. This morning's list includes a task that's more vexing than it might seem. We have a thermometer with a wireless outdoor sensor. The challenge comes when I try to find a spot that has the least exposure to sunlight. It should be a foot above the ground (or snow), open to the sky so that cold or hot air is not trapped around it, and, as mentioned before, away from direct sunlight as much as possible. In the spring and summer, all 360° of the house receives some sunlight; the northeast corner receives the least solar warmth. Unfortunately, the wireless path from that corner to the base station passes through the MacGregors' laundry room. Washing machines are not very transparent for radio signals. This task, then, combines aspects of meteorology, astronomy, and radio science into a bit of fun.

By the way, we can always rely on our favorite three-alarm nutjob to take us down the path of heavenly distraction: "Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws."

We have red-winged blackbirds visiting our feeders, reminding me of the only book that I know of that features a technical writer as a major character: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Spring forward, for varying values of forward

We received more than five inches of rain from the week's storm, plus a few inches of snow that hung around for a short while. Today the sky is clear, the sun is bright, and it's 50° at coffee break time — as much of a pronouncement of spring as we can expect in New England.

Today also marks the end of the second full week away from my job. About three weeks ago, it became clear that my recovery and return to work wasn't going as hoped. Simply put, I wasn't able to do the work. My efforts were only digging the hole deeper. So, after good conversations with HR and the senior director of our group, we worked out what I regard as a generous severance agreement. My job now is to get better.

I'm learning a lot anew — accepting help when it's offered rather than insisting that I can do things by myself that I can't, accepting suggestions rather than holding on to old ways of planning my day, old ways that have, as the management euphemism declares, been overcome by events. Writing is hard because the thinking that precedes it is hard. I'm grateful for all the help that I'm receiving and that gratitude helps me move forward.

Are we impactful yet?

During a year-in-review conference call, one of the marketing folks said that if we're successful in implementing our new strategies, we will be very impactful. She made it sound like a good thing.

Sprint/Nextel Will Fire Any Employee Caught Participating In Blogs - Consumerist

Just as New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day are set aside for amateur drinkers, so, too, does April 1^st let the general population a glimpse of life as the fooler and foolee. The real fools take April Fool's Day off. (Witness that Congress is not in session.)

The 2007 baseball season begins today, with the Olde Towne Team playing in Kansas City.

This morning I have meetings scheduled with my management and people in HR to try to decide what happens next at work. The last few weeks have been rough. I was out sick for two-and-a-half days last week and I accomplished very little during my hours in the office. The short description is that I can't do my job and don't know when I'll be able to do so. Today, one could reasonably assume, is going to be an impactful day.

Dept. of Error Messages

"[08:51] *** Error logging into AIM: Error code 29: We think this means the AIM/ICQ servers are sick of seeing connections from your IP address. Wait a few minutes and try again."

Use of Cellular Telephones in the Hospital Environment

Mayo Clinic Proceedings:
Researchers have concluded that cell phones do not appear to affect hospital equipment.

Researchers believe Nazi-looted art could be found in Finland

Researchers believe Nazi-looted art could be found in Finland

One of the researchers is Maarit Hakkarainen (no known relation, but maybe).

It's good to learn things, mostly.

We're making slow and erratic progress cleaning out my father's house. Mike and his crew are well along with the remodeling. I'm still seeing this house as the place where I grew and the place where my father lived alone for more than 35 years. Mike and his team are looking at it with the ideas of how another family might make this their home.

We found my grandparents' Russian passports. (They came here in 1908, when Finland was a Russian province.) Other documents were a mix of Finnish and Russian. It led us to wonder how much Russian my grandparents knew. Even as teenagers, they would have had some contact with the government and, likely, would have had to be able to read and speak a few words. It's a question that I never thought to ask. Perhaps my cousins on my mother's side might remember hearing something about the Russian influence in the daily lives of Finns.

The papers also included their citizenship papers, social security cards, and death certificates. My grandparents' caskets were guaranteed for 20 years.

Among the newspaper clippings that my grandparents saved was the announcement of my parents' wedding in the local Finnish newspaper. Neither my mother nor my father had kept anything like that, in any language.

Last night, we picked up an inch of snoo.

What's snoo?
Plenty, what's snoo with you?

I started back to work full-time this week. I've had good coaching from Sandra and from the EAP rep at work, particularly on the idea of keeping my work schedule to 40 hours per week. Good suggestion. I thought about it a lot during the past two, 11-hour days. (My boss's boss needed some material for an important meeting this morning. I met the deadline and only had to re-run the spell checker on one of the files.)

A couple of weeks ago, we walked in to the camp from the public beach, a bit less than a mile each way. In places where the ski mobiles had packed the snow, the walking was easy and fun. Where the snow was soft, however, it got tiring very quickly. That's how work has been - when the support is there, I can make good progress without much strain. When the support isn't there, my mood and energy get bogged down quickly. And then, when Marley takes off after a ski mobile, well, that's when the metaphor gets too complicated to sustain.

Our home computer just returned from a trip to the IBM spa. The hard drive went bad about a month ago. IBM sent me a replacement disk. (The machine was still under warranty.) Three times, they sent the wrong set of disks that would let me re-install the operating system. Finally, we agreed that they needed to do the re-installation. Although I do have good backups of our important stuff, it will take a good bit of work to get the machine back to a familiar working configuration.

Ten years ago today, we brought Marley home from the animal shelter. As some may remember, he ate a plastic wastebasket on the ride home. He's brought us good comfort and good fun these 10 years, all for the modest price of skritches on his head and back and a chance to lick out the frying pan.

Ice and Snow

Sunday morning Sandra and I drove to the camp. The road had a thin coat of last week's snow and lots of tracks where other cars and trucks had struggled on the hill. There were also snowmobile tracks that went the length of the road and then turned around in the driveway in front of our boathouse.

The camp was in good shape with no sign of trouble from the little critters who winter over inside. Years ago, the police chief would walk around the lake during the winter, leaving a note that said that on a particular day, the camp was ok. I don't know what he would have done if there was a problem - signs of winter damage, break-in, or the like. Call the cops, I guess.

On the lake, the wind had blown the snow into hard-packed drifts on the shore. The hard snow gave good traction, but when Marley ran across a clear patch, his feet slipped in all directions. We found a few fishing holes that had frozen over. We walked to the middle of the lake, listening to the booming ice. A group of people were fishing in the southern part of the lake. We waved to them and then turned back to shore.

The road and the lake won't be open for long. The sky dawned pink today, a reminder that we have a snowstorm coming tomorrow. Nothing like the snows that have hit upstate New York. Sandra's cousin reports that they'd received more than 100 inches of snow in her town on the shore of Lake Ontario. We're looking at 8-10. We'll work at home tomorrow.

Happy 17th Birthday, Michael Francis.

In photos and memories

Recently, while cleaning out my father's house, we found some pictures of Don and Huck. They were building a frame to which we'd attach the floating dock. They did good work together and had a lot of fun. Don reminded me that I should collect as many stories from my father as I could.

What's it been now, three years, since Don left us? Most of the time, we don't count the days. We just remember him, day after day.

NJ.com: NewsFlash - For AC lady, luck be a baby; gambler gives birth on casino floor

NJ.com: NewsFlash - For AC lady, luck be a baby; gambler gives birth on casino floor

There's been quite a bit of discussion in Massachusetts regarding the prospect of opening casinos in various parts of the state. Our new governor, Deval Patrick, has indicated his willingness to consider proposals for gambling sites.

Now, I know that it's not a good idea to legislate based on anecdotes, but I can't ignore this one. Casinos, IMO, are a bad idea. I don't hold the Lottery in high regard either, nor any other form of state-sponsored gambling. It's probably the most regressive form of taxation we have. That Lottery revenues provide a steady stream of money to our school systems shows to me that our state and local governments are too cowardly to develop an honest tax system. Perhaps we should go even further, such as putting up whorehouses on the Mass Pike.

Lest we forget, this is a blog about work

I'm returning to work today, half-time, four hours a day, five days a week. After a month or so, I'll meet with my managers to determine how close I am to resuming full-time work.

Am I anxious? You betcha. For one thing, the technology that we're developing is complex and changes rapidly; that's how the group manages to stay successful. The team is working on new products for new customers, in addition to maintaining the previous stuff. The work is hard, even on good days.

Even more, um, interesting, I'll have to deal with the mess I left behind. Being sick explains, but doesn't excuse, unsatisfactory work. It'll be a while before folks can trust that I can deliver good work on time; it'll be a while before I believe that about myself. So, I'll show up and accept responsibility for what went on before, try my best to fix the things I can, and try my best to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

Even though I might be scared, I can tell myself what I've told myself many times before - hard times always have something interesting to teach me.

Humming 'Joshua Gone Barbados'

We note with sadness that Eric von Schmidt died Saturday at age 75. He was a key figure in the folk music world of the 1960s. I went to college with his ex-wife and learned how to think about the people who wrote and sang those now familiar tunes as ordinary people with extraordinary talents.

On cold days, the sun still shines

It wasn't that long ago that the phone company was the domestic bureaucracy that inspired the greatest terror. Lily Tomlin and Elaine May developed and performed brilliant characters based on the stereotypical telephone operator. "We're the phone company--we don't have to care." So, when I called to cancel the phone service at my father's house, I delighted with the empathy and efficiency of the Verizon customer service representative. The line would be disconnected within a couple of hours and there'd be no charges for that portion of the month that he was, for a pretty compelling reason, unable to use the phone.

There is a little-understood principle called the Law of Conservation of Malevolence. If one company gets a clue and starts to treat its customers well, then, at least one other company must inherit the former's astringency. On this occasion, it went to the cable company: Comcast. A couple of years ago, I bought cable service for my father so that he could watch the ball games. The bills came to me; my social security number was on the account; all the Comcast promotional material came to me. So, when I called to cancel the service, the CSR told me that I needed to bring a copy of the death certificate to the nearest Comcast office, proving that my father was indeed dead so that I could stop the service that I had purchased.

CNN mentioned this site - Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing - earlier this week. The podcasts (audio programs) are four or five minutes long and provide good guidance for writing and speaking well. This week's program covers the use of bad vs. badly. ("I feel bad." and "I feel badly.")

We're receiving our first real cold blast of the season. At this writing, the temperature is -2°F. With a northwesterly breeze, the wind child makes it feel as cold as a Comcast CSR's heart.

Sometimes, the odometer click is louder than usual. Happy 40^th birthday, Mike. As we've said often, you and your family are giving our name a good name.

Finally, because of the turbulence surrounding my father's last days, I didn't get a chance to mention Krista's 11^th birthday, two weeks ago today. I'm glad that she had a happy day.

Cooper's tracks

We've had a touch of light snow during the past few days, enough to barely cover the ground. In places where last week's ice is still around, it's very slippery underfoot. In the fresh snow, footprints show up nicely.

The dog from across the street, Cooper, had been visiting my father's house. My father would save scraps of food and feed the dog from the back door. Cooper was tentative the first time I opened the back door to offer him a treat; he took the snack and backed away quickly. Now, we have several sets of Cooper's footprints circling the house. No one was home. Even if there had been someone at home, there's nothing left to eat.

---

It was easy to stop the newspaper delivery, cancel the telephone service, and have my father's mail forwarded to my home. The cable company (Comcast), however, wins the trophy for Insensitive Business Practices. Even though all of the cable bills had been coming to me for the years that we had cable at my father's house and my SSN was on the account, I had to bring a death certificate to the Comcast office in Leominster to prove that he was dead so that I could stop the cable service that I was paying for.

Obit and Services

Thanks for all of your kind notes. I'll reply individually soon.

You can find my father's obituary and information about the services at the Smith Funeral Home web site: http://www.gardnerfuneral.com/

Over the horizon

On Monday, 15 January, my father passed away in his sleep, by the fire in the wood stove in his living room. Huck was 93. An ice storm had come through on Monday, leaving us without power for 12 hours. What work we had to do, we did by the light of flashlights, candles, and kerosene lamp.

He left as he lived. His last meal was a half cup of coffee and bit of Finnish coffee bread, kahvi leipa, that Adam had made. His family and friends came to visit and to share stories of a remarkable life.

Huck loved sailing and sailed until he was 90. If you're clever, and he was, you can use the strength of the wind to go where you want to go. Many times, when we were sure that there was no wind at all, he kept the boat moving and made it safely to shore.

And so it was, when it was dark and quiet, he sailed on home.

How to stop a conversation

Some 15 years ago Sandra and I attended a holiday party sponsored by her company's division. She managed a system administration and software development team of 10 people or so. A woman who worked for Sandra, along with the woman's husband, joined us at dinner table. The conversation meandered, I'm not sure how it was that Sandra and I learned how the husband in this couple wore fishnet underwear. Who knows what bit of life-saving knowledge has been blocked from my memory because I have the image of this guy, wearing fishnets, in my beleaguered brain?

The first of December was covered with nothing much

It's above 60 now. A cold front is coming in later today and we may have snow by Monday.

The high school in my father's town has a program to give students extra credits if they help the elderly. My father turned down an offer to have a few teens shovel snow around his house. He didn't think that they'd be able to keep up and would wind up hitting each other with the shovels. So, when the snow comes, he'll be out there with the Jeep and then the snow blower.

Happy 93^rd Birthday, Huck.

Clear sound and foggy bottoms

Marley and I went for a walk this morning. Our preferred path is along the fire trails that run through a large tract of undeveloped land nearby. Today, however, the grounds crews were on the trails, clearing away fallen trees and branches. We kept our distance and Marley was on the leash for most of the walk.

We knew that the crews were in the woods because sound travels so much further these days. The leaves are down and there's no snow yet. The chain saws and ATVs traded solos with the ducks in the pond and the down-shifting trucks on Main Street. It'll be quiet again soon and we'd gladly trade a bit clatter for a 60-degree day so late in the season.

There was a sign in the van that took Sandra and me from Reagan Airport to the hotel:

Its (sic) state law:
No Smoking
Fasten Seat Belts

Ever the dreamers. Washington, D.C. isn't a state or even in a state. [Insert your own joke here.]

We stayed at a nice hotel a few blocks from the White House and were delighted to discover products from niece Lori's company in our bathroom. Now, I'm more of a soap kind of guy when I wash my hair, but the mint and thyme wash smelled nice and was soothing outside and inside my head.

We had our Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat at the restaurant where we had lunch after my mother's funeral service. Good humor prevailed in the crowded restaurant. We had good seats and a good meal. (You don't find many classy restaurants that serve liver and bacon.)

It's not surprising that Washington is a richly multi-cultural city, particularly on Thanksgiving weekend. You have all kinds of people who can't or don't want to go back home: foreign students, diplomats, spies, trembling Republicans. There are the firm and the infirm. There are those, too, for whom D.C. is home. So an Escalade is parked next to an Astro van and somehow, as with our democracy, it all works.

After dinner we went for a walk and that's where some of my lug nuts started to rattle. Sandra had wanted to see the new World War II memorial and possibly the Martin Luther King memorial, both recent additions to the Washington Mall. I had no recollection of the plan, no idea even what the Washington Mall was, let alone where it was. Added to that, it was a foggy evening, although there was no doubt that I brought my own fog with me.

I knew that I'd have memory loss after the treatments, but I didn't expect that it would be like this. Not knowing something is troublesome enough, but not knowing that you don't know, well, you'd better hope that the person with you is loving and patient.

It was only after we'd walked a while toward the Washington Monument that I started to have a clue about what was happening and what it meant. We made our way to the WWII and Lincoln memorials and the Wall. We'll visit MLK on another trip.

On Friday morning, the air clear and fresh, we set out to Arlington National Cemetery via the city's delightful public transit system, the Metro. We kept calling it the T and by day's end worked our way to calling it the M. The cars are clean and comfortable; there's plenty of good information about what's where. We made it across (under) the river and into Virginia easily.

The cemetery, sadly, is huge with room for more. It's a mile walk from the visitor's center to the columbarium where Linc and my mother rest. (A columbarium is also know as a dovecote, where doves are kept.) The walk is full of reverence and history. Some came here young, some old soldiers, some old pacifists, all trying, in their own ways, to keep us free.

My wits were good enough to get our airplane reservations changed to an earlier flight on Saturday, but we had an, um, interesting time because I couldn't connect the dots in my mind to find a clear path home. Fortunately, Rhode Island politicians worked the system well, so that there were plenty of ways to get from there to here.

Frost, still, at 11 in the morning

The shadows around the house are long, even at mid-day. We had a cold, clear night last night and the frost stayed on the back deck and yard until late morning.

I'm wrung out today. I haven't had good sleep for a couple of nights. I had my third treatment yesterday morning and am waiting for a call to schedule my fourth. (Note the paragraph ahead regarding the phone technician.) Frankly, my family has noticed more improvement than I have. When I listen to myself, I can't always make much sense of the words or ideas.

My insurance company informed me today that my short-term leave is done and that I'm being switched over to long-term. Mostly, it means more paperwork for my doctors and me. I don't mind the paperwork, but the extra forms take time away from my doctors, who should have that time to practice medicine.

This is a day at home. Marley and I did walk to a local garage where they'd done some routine maintenance on Sandra's car. (Lucky her. She gets to drive my car with the loose wires and rattles and bumps and the odd aggolmeration of audio gear and parts.) We've reached the time when I need to either look for a new car or spend a chunk of change on maintenance and repair. Those decisions aren't easy in the best of times. These, we know aren't the best of times for my decision-making.

Today we have a Verizon technician making some changes to our phone lines. We used be very afraid when we saw a phone company truck in the neighborhood because we were sure something was going to go wrong. The technician just walked through the room, muttering something about "unauthorized service." "I'll get you going again," he said.

Sandra and I are going on a quick trip to Washington D.C. at the Old Ebbit Grill We'll visit Arlington National Cemetery, where my mother and Linc are inurned. We haven't been there since my mother's funeral. We'll have a coffee at the Smithsonian and also have a meal at the Old Ebbit Grill, where we had lunch after the funerals.

Thinking of the season. As tough as these months have been, I have much for which to be grateful.

You Are 92% Thankful

You're an incredibly thankful person, and everyone around you feels very appreciated. You inspire people to be more optimistic, forgiving, and grateful.

How Thankful Are You?

Mmm, hospital coffee

The people in the hospital were very nice, anticipating aspects of the procedure that might uncomfortable, scary, confusing. Hospitals can be an unsettling place because, I think, the people who work there see the same things each day, while folks from the outside are there for something that is new and strange.

Sandra and I arrived shortly before 6:30. On Tuesday I'd received two phone calls from the hospital, one telling me to report to a room on the 3^rd floor, the other to the 2^nd. We arrived at the room on the 3^rd where we were directed to the 2^nd. Now we know.

The procedure itself was a swirl of activity and lights until it was lights out for me. It all felt like it went quickly, but it was a few hours before I was back in my room (which didn't look familiar at all), some time after 10:00. I declined the offer of breakfast, but did have a cup of coffee.

My only discomfort is a sore jaw because I was clenching my teeth so hard. A couple of Tylenol^® takes care of that. There's some goop left over in my hair, a conductivity gel.

Sandra brought me home by noon. (I think. I'm having difficulty with time and dates. I keep thinking that today is Monday and, on this cloudy day, I can't guess the time; I have to check a clock.)

In all, I feel ok, tired, but ok.

It's easy to find positive thoughts when you know where to look

Tomorrow morning I'll start a series of ECT treatments. It's an out-patient procedure, two to three times a week. They tell me that it won't hurt and I believe them. They say that there might some temporary memory loss and I'll say, of course, "What memory loss?"

Today I've had two calls from the hospital, telling me to report at two different offices and at different times. The doctors are still trying to locate the lab results of the tests that I had last Friday. My definition of bad bureaucracy is that climate in the workplace that causes good, well-intentioned, smart people to do bad or stupid things.

I was told a long time ago about the power of a gratitude list. At its most simple, it's a list of the people and fortunes which I'm grateful. Even on my worst days, I can easily fill a page. I have many blessing, near and far.

In the meantime, the world out there goes along its mega-goofy ways:

• Britney Spears kicked her husband to the curb by way of a Blackberry text message.
• One can get a technical writing job working in on Asset-Forfeiture and Money-Laundering projects.
  
• OK, bring in the violins: a Hell's Angel is feeling bad because the Angels have been ruled a criminal organization (organisation?) in Canada.
• A Wisconsin legislator has a novel idea to protect students against armed assaults - arm the teachers. A high-school physics teacher of mine used to throw chalk at the wiseguys sleeping in the back of the room. How much more interesting would it be if he carried a 9mm?

I'll write as best as I can during the coming weeks.

The low, gray clouds of November

A quick way to retrieve your current weather conditions and forecast is to type this into your browser's address bar: http://weather.gov/01331, where 01331 is your ZIP code. (via lifehacker). Of course, what you'll find around here at this time in mid-New England won't be very interesting.

We've had rain followed by showers followed by rain again, this for several days and for several days more. The skies may be the color of wet dustballs, but there are fine points of celebration and thanksgiving.

Happy 64^th Anniversary, Marian and Woody, including nearly 25 years as housemates. Life's pretty good, y'know.