Remember when you sang "Rain, rain, go away"?

This is that other day. Rain came today. And yesterday. Most of the days in the coming week will be that other day, too. Let's stop singing that song for a while and let the rain catch up with itself.

There is an Outback Steakhouse across the street from hotel where I stay in New York. This week they had a large sign over the main entrance, letting all the children know that Outback would be open at 11AM on Mother's Day. Think Mom would like the 22 oz. Porterhouse steak. After all, "it's a bonzer." Oh, and don't forget the Bloomin' Onion^® - 800 calories and 56 grams of fat goodness.

It's hard to get Mother's Day right. Other holidays, such as Christmas and birthdays, have their own challenges, but Mother's Day is something special. Could I have been a better kid? Could I be one now? How would she like to celebrate the day, particularly when she says, "What ever you do is fine, dear."? Sometimes, flowers and a card work very nicely. Sometimes, it's appropriate to champion large causes.) Sometimes, the mother just wants a nap. At day's end, as my mother's friend would say, "We do the best what we are."

"Beat your swords into ploughshares and your vacuum cleaners into lights."

This might work, as long as your mother doesn't know your handwriting.

Yesterday Adam, Jennie, and Lilly met us at the camp. The original plan was that Adam would bring his truck and help get the boat into the water. But, the guy who was unwinterizing (summerize?) the boat couldn't finish his work in the heavy rain. (We'll try again next weekend.) Adam and I had plenty of work to do anyway. Our mission was to turn on the water. Sometimes, it's a task that takes an hour, sometimes it takes three. This year it was three and it's still not done.

The hose that draws water from the lake has a leak where we join two sections of hose with a PVC union. Either it is operator error where the operator (yours truly) cross-threaded the connection or the rubber gasket inside the union is worn or torn. When we take the union apart to inspect it, all of the water will drain out of the water tank. We'll have to prime the pump again next weekend.

In addition, we were having a heck of a time figuring out why the water system wasn't keeping its pressure. After retracing the lines, Adam discovered that a section of plastic pipe in our nearly new toilet had water trapped in it last fall. The water froze, splitting the pipe. We could get a replacement part, but what good is it to replace a badly designed part with another. This one, as my father says, needs some pondering.

It was fun to work with Adam. There isn't a lot I can teach him about home maintenance, but this was one area were I had something to offer. He made a good suggestion about installing a ground-fault breaker on the outlet where we plug in the water pump. Just because I've always done this work while standing barefoot on a wet floor doesn't mean that it's always been a good idea.

Once we got the water system to a known state, I had a chance to visit with Jennie and Lily. Lily and I had a nice conversation about her idea to paint Marley's toenails red and why that might not be a good idea.

We'll go to Mike and Lynn's this afternoon, arriving with pizza and gratitude. This will be the third time that we've been over there recently. Last Sunday was the party for Tess's first communion. Thursday night was her birthday. We keep showing up and they keep acting like they're glad to see us. What a kick.

Gone like a cool breeze

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy 8th Birthday, Tess.

Where there's smoke, there's Huck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Happy Anniversary, Adam and Jennie.

Here they are

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

Thanks to Aunt Barbara for the pictures.

Dept. of Corrections

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

Birthdays abound

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I don't.

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

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

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

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

Happy Birthday, TJL

Cogito, ergo sum. Cogito.

There are a couple of oak trees in the back yard that don't look healthy. They have a mold on the trunk that may be the culprit. Unlike the sudden oak death that's been killing oaks around the country, in which case the tree is dead within weeks, this ailment has been progressing for a year or more. These aren't very old trees, perhaps 40-50 years. We'll see what kind of summer they have and make our decision accordingly.

After a long and agitated wait, we have five requisitions to hire people, two in the office where I work and three in New York. In addition, I'll be able to bring one or two people for six-month contracts. We have a couple of good candides already and a couple more will be coming in to talk with us next week. Even with those new hires, we'll have quite a challenge to meet the deadlines schedule for late June and early July. During a conference call yesterday afternoon, a co-worker asked if this was a time to panic. I said that a bit of panic might not be out of line. At which she panicked, "If you say it's time to panic..."

Just Marley and me for the evening. Sandra's gone into Boston to visit a friend she's known since second-grade. The families moved to different towns and Sandra's friend has been in California since college, I believe. She has two children, the youngest is attending BU as an art major. Sandra's friend and her daughter will fly back to California tomorrow.

There's a threat of frost tonight and again tomorrow, although it's not likely that we'll get any her or at the camp. This is kind of frost that settles into the valleys. This is something that I have trouble understands. If you go up to the top of a hill, you'll be cooler. Here's a table that shows the effect. I'll track down an explantion later.

One of the maxims in parenting is that if a kid wants to mow the lawn, the kid is probably too young. The grandson of our next door neighbors is somewhere between eight and 10. I don't know if he volunteered or not, but he did a good job.
Fifteen years ago or so, I heard a loud explosion next door. I ran out of the house, expecting to see that the furnace had exploded. The lawn-mowing kid's father was standing on their door step. "It was nothin," he said. "Just an M80."

Not only is this in Deleware getting fired, they're throwing books of lawsuits at him as he runs out the door. Hel also spent an "spent an inordinate amount of time engaged in personal iPod-related activities."

Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon has been on the Billboard chart for 1500 weeks, a record. About half of those weeks were consecutive, starting in 1973. (The article has the wrong album cover. It should be this.)

There was a nice Spiritul Life column in today's Boston Globe about philosophical healing. My mother was quite taken by the idea of philosophical counseling when she first encountered it.

April showers bring May showers

A light rain started overnight and will continue through the day. We need the rain. Yesterday, the National Weather Service had a red flag warning for fire danger. Large brush fires were reported in Auburn and in the Great Blue Hills Reservation.

During a recent visit, my father talked about a trip to Finland with with his friend, Ted, in the mid-70s. We learned about the archipelago off the coast of Finland and its Swedish-speaking inhabitants. We learned about a guy (friend or relative, we're not sure) named John who could lift a 55-gallon barrel of oil by the rim, using just his finger tips. When the scrapbook came out, we saw pictures of the islands, as well as a picture postcard of my grandmother's home town, Kannonkoski. Judging from the cars, two Volkswagens and a Saab, in the picture, the aerial shot was taken some time in the 60s. My grandfather came from the neighboring town of Kivijärvi. Thanks to Sandra's efforts, we have a good genealogical record of my grandmother's family. We have, however, almost nothing about my grandfather. He left for American and seemed to have no contact with his family again.

The little cove next to the boathouse is lined with old tires. Because we now tie the boat to the dock near the sauna, we don't need those tires and plan to remove them. Anyone want a couple dozen 40-year old tires? Turning them into furniture is a possibility. As long a tradition as it is, the option of throwing them on the side of some dirt road has fallen from favor.

Even as Sears has branched out to show other brand-name products, such as Whirlpool, Frigidaire, and Milwaukee, it still features its own brands prominently. So, the Craftsman and Kenmore products are easy to find. Around the store, signs displaying the brand names are hanging on the walls, although not always with the best placement. At a nearby mall, a sign for DieHard batteries was placed prominently above the women's shoes department. Free jumper cables with each set of pumps.

The other day, I heard Josh White perform Strange Fruit a song long associated with Billie Holliday. His version was every bit as terrifying, even though his voice had nowhere the range or force. His understated performance made the material all the more unnverving.

Last week, I did a Google search to find out more about the meeting between China's president Hu and our W. One of the papers that had a worthwhile writeup was the World Peace Herald. My mother and her close friends would have been interested in anything that talked regularly about peace in the world. Well, it turns out that the WPH is published by the Unification Church, aka the Moonies. (See note at the bottom of the column.)

If you're going to get sick, July's not a good month. (Here's why.) This guy, for example, chose April to drive 12 nails into his head.

A guy tries to board a flight at Rhode Island's T.F. Green Airport. The guy's got a loaded handgun in his carry-on bag, along with extra ammunition. You'd think that would be the weird part. No, the weird part is that the guy was "released on an unsecured bond this morning because he is not considered a flight risk." What part of trying to board an airplane didn't they understand?

American Airlines is offering weekend getaway fares. For $199, you can fly from New York to Los Angeles. Or, for the same $199, you can fly from Chicago to La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes

We probably won't be singing The Internationale today, but today's work boycott by immigrants is going to be the largest labor action that we've seen in a long time.

More than half of our team at work is foreign-born, from east, south, and west Asia, all engineers, all professionals. And for each one of them, there are a dozen whom we don't see, the people who pick our vegetables, build our roads, clean our offices and hotels, and wash our dishes at the restaurants where we eat. If nothing else, perhaps today we'll see these people, see them by their absence.

We can be further enlightened to know that Pravda (yes, it still exists) thinks that we're on the wrong track with our multiculturalism. To which, Mikhail Gorbachev says that both countries are on the same track, heading toward each other, as in the days of the Cold War. "We have not yet left the past behind: its death grip can be felt everywhere."

A story that we didn't finish reading.

It wasn't a good thing when the White House had its mojo, so I'm pretty well convinced that Josh Bolten's plan to get it back won't be a good thing, either.

I spend quite a bit of time waiting in line at the pharmacy. I want to be respectful of the others in line, but some things are out of my control. One evening, I stood behind an elderly man who was wearing hearing aids.

"Take two of these when you get home and one every six hours until the symptoms are gone," said the pharmacist.
"What's that?" said the man, leaning forward.
The pharmacist repeated the instructions, a bit more slowly and loudly.
"Take two," he said.
Louder yet. "And one every six hours until your symptoms are gone."
"Symptoms?"
Loudest. 'Until your gout doesn't bother you."
"Oh. OK."

Spring continues to insinuate itself into our days. The music from the ice cream truck is a part of the evening's sounds. Young teenagers up the street play with a Frisbee, although they are, by any measure, pretty bad at it. The Frisbee goes into the bushes, into the trees, every place except into the hands of the intended receiver. The leaves on the trees are coming along nicely. To our north and west are towns that are two or three hundred feet higher than we are. Their trees are at least a week behind our pace.

Among the things that we inherited from my mother were her pens. She used Papermate pens and bought them by the handful. Because we're not writing as much as she did (who could?), these pens are lasting a long time.

Spring's a' springing

We spent this season's first night at the camp on Friday. Sandra went there in the afternoon to open up, start a fire, clean the yard, and, in general, make the place ready for overnight guests. There had been some overnighters before, as evidenced by the acorn on the shelf above the couch. We won't turn on the water for a couple more weeks, so water for washing (people and dishes) and coffee needed to be fetched from the lake by a bucket. I learned a long time ago, staying at my aunt and uncle's camp in Vermont, where water had to be brought from the stream, that carrying two buckets is easier than carrying one. Better balance. We have just one bucket at our camp, but we'll endure.

The next day we had three visitors. First, my father arrived a bit before noon for coffee and Finnish coffee bread. A short while later, boat guy Andy and his dog, Hydro, came to help us get the boat ready for the season. Hydro, a youthful yellow Lab, didn't do much work on the boat, but he kept Marley entertained. A slight row broke out when Hydro took one of Marley's squeak toys. Overall, though, the two dogs played hard and well.

Marley's showing signs of age. The play date with Hydro wore him out. Whenever he can, he finds places in the sun for his naps. Since we cleared away the trees, the area behind the camp is bright and sunny and the bed of hemlock and pine needles is warm. It's a good place for an old dog.

Next Saturday my father will go to the burial services for his friend, Arne, who died a few months ago. He'd known Arne since the time they worked in the Quincy shipyards in the 30s. Arne was the last of my father's friends who were the same age as my father.

We asked my father if he knew the way to the town where the services will be held. He did. He knew a guy, named Bill, who lived in that town. Bill drank a bit and when Bill drank, he regularly drove into a particular tree in the center of town. It happened so often that Bill's friends hung a old tire on the tree and put up a sign that said, "Bill's Tree." Bill had to spend a lot of time calling in favors from his political friends so that he could keep his license and get to work.

A black bear and her cubs were discovered in a maple tree in Barre. It took two state agencies and the local fire department to bring the bears down safely. The bears were then delivered to the Phillipston wildlife preserve, about three miles, as the bears walk, from our camp.

A news item that I somehow missed: last Friday was National Hairball Awareness Day.

The recent news about the Massachusetts department of health publishing a report that ties incidents of cancer to a toxic waste site in Ashland reminds me of the Nashua River in Fitchburg in the 60s. The river would be different colors, depending on the dyes that the paper mills were using that day. Sometimes red, sometimes yellow, sometimes green. We never swam in it, nor did I know anybody who tried to fish there. The river is good now, although I would still hesitate to put my toe in there, unless that toe was in a rubber boot.

Ice on the bird bath

Dunno if the birds knew, but I didn't expect to see the bird bath frozen over this morning. It was warm yesterday and raining last night. This is why we don't turn on the water at the camp until mid-May or later.

Last night we went to see our financial advisor at her home. In addition to the usual "spend less, save more" message, she provided us with a couple of good ideas to help us be comfortable during our retirement. She also didn't blanch when we talked about specific years for retirement. We won't be living off of tins of cat food, but if we fly overseas, it might be like this.

Our FA and her partner bought their house late last year. It's a well-designed and extremely spacious town-house with a stunning amount of storage space. The house is one of the first in a newly-constructed over-55 development. (A sign at the driveway entrance says that hard hats must be worn at all times.) These are people not much older than we are, still working, but with very flexible schedules. As we arrives, our FA's partner was taking their yellow Lab to a program at the library. Kids learn how to read aloud by reading to the dogs. (More here.)

The area where they live is evolving, as are most towns around here. There are new homes, some small and some large, under construction all along the road. There are new shops and offices for professionals such as lawyers and real estate agents and accountants. And, across the street, there's a bait shop.

The closest that I've come to putting a rusty drill bit into my eardrum was last night as I heard Pat Boone sing Smoke on the Water.

We were out late, past eight o'clock. I'm back in an old pattern of waking very early. Today it was 2:30; in the previous several days, it was 1:30. I met with my doctor yesterday and we have something new to try. New is good, because old is getting old.

We're marking the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl explosion. To the tragic stories of death and displacement, heroic stories of those covered the maniacal reactor in concrete, I can add just one tiny anecdote. The radiation cloud drifted north-northwest and reached Finland in a couple of days. The reindeer, a source of meat for the Finns and the Sami, were so badly contaminated that the meat couldn't be eaten. So, they fed it to the minks.

What would you do for an iPod? You can leave your dignity by the curb on your way out.

This is what rain looks like

After a few delightfully warm and sunny days, we've settled into a stretch of cool rain. It was freezing yesterday morning and just a few degrees above today. Goodness knows, we need the rain. The reservoirs are a foot or two down from their normal spring levels.

The floor in our family living is littered with Marley's toys. For the last six months, he's been leaving the toys in the MacGregors' apartment. Now that the MacGs' have gone back to PEI, Marley's squeaky, plushable, and chewable playthings have come back home.

Woody and Marian left for the island on Friday morning, staying overnight in New Brunswick, and arriving at the house in early afternoon. The house and property appear to have wintered well. They could not, however, get to the shore. Some logs had washed up on shore, blocking the path to the water. Earlier this winter, a ship carrying pulp wood lost its load in the waters off PEI and Nova Scotia. These are probably some of the same logs.

We went to visit Adam, Jennie, and Lily for a birthday breakfast yesterday morning. Good fun. They've been in their new house for three months and each visit shows how they are settling in. Sandra made curtains for their front window, a bright Swedish pattern that went nicely with the log cabin interior.

On the way back, we stopped at Whole Foods. I wanted some fruits, but, as one would expect, other things found their way into the shopping cart. One thing that we didn't buy was a package of Seaweed Rice Crackers. I get too hungry too often, but I don't think that I'd get hungry enough for Seaweed Rice Crackers.

The newspapers are late today, perhaps because there isn't much news.

Friday's New York Times carried a review of a new production of Brecht's Threepenny Opera, a wild, contemporary treatment with, notably, Cindy Lauper as Jenny. Overall, the review was not favorable, but the reviewer liked Ms. Lauper.

I did a season of summer stock theater in Vermont. Well, I wasn't really in the troupe; I was the janitor for the building. I did perform in one show - as a cop in Threepenny Opera. It was an intense show, made all the more so by the music. There was a small community band, mostly brass and woodwinds, perhaps a percussionist. They typically performed Sousa marches and show tunes for concerts on the common. Kurt Weil's music, with its complex rhythms and scales was quite a problem for them, but they soldiered on and gave a good series of shows.

Two buildings up from the theater was a small factory that made wood bowls and a small store that sold them. The owner, Sam Lloyd, was a regular participant in the theater's productions and he was quite good. Sam was the brother of Christopher Lloyd. Christopher appeared in a few shores years after I left.

We tried watching The Royal Tennenbaums last night, but turned it off halfway through. The storyline was good and the cast superb, but the writing was weak and plodding. This was my choice, so Sandra gets to put the next movie into our Netflix queue. BTW, here's a interesting write-up of the history of Netflix envelopes.

In the Almost A Good Idea Dept., we learn that a Canadian has developed a cigarette that will deliver your daily supply of Vitamin C.

Would you pay $800 or so for a device that will keep teenagers from congregating in places where you don't want them to be? The gadget emits a high-frequency sound that doesn't bother us because our ears are old. Purportedly, the sound doesn't bother dogs. The current model mounts on a wall or a pole. When they have a hat-sized product, their sales will likely really take off.

If you can't hear, talk louder.

Well, yesterday afternoon's meeting started off on the downhill side and kept going. "We're going to have to manage this almost like a project release," the project leader told the 20 or so people who had come to talk about the, um, product release. We did have an agenda, but it was quickly set aside as we tried to get the teleconference and in-room projector set up. The people on the phone were told, "If you can't hear, speak up." We never did get anything to the remote participants so they could see what we were discussing. It was very technical stuff and the speakers kept referring to the slide presentation. (They had this cool laser pointer.)

During the meeting, there were two, three, and sometimes four conversations going on at once. One guy in the back of the room was the most chatty. I think that he was someone important, but I don't know because we never did introductions. The chairperson knew everyone and that seemed to be good enough.

The meeting that was scheduled to end at 5:00 let out at 5:45, but with no decisions made or action items assigned, except that we'll have another meeting next Thursday. In that state of bliss, I drove the three hours to home.

In the high-rent mall near the office down yonder, I saw mall cops patrolling the carpeted aisles on Segways.

God, grant me the serenity.... What's additionally weird is that, in the middle of the story about an AA meeting, there's this advertisement for a huge beer keg sale.

The wireless network in the house went down for a little nap this morning. When I ran through the usual diagnostics, I received this message So, I asked myself for assistance and recommended that we reboot the modem and router.

Queen Elizabeth II turns 80 today. Some days she looks better than others. Usually, the Brits celebrate her birthday in June, when the weather's better. It's good to be the Queen.

In the early 50s, Walt Kelly, of Pogo fame, was in regular conversation with the editors of Life to arrange for one of his drawings to appear on the magazine's cover. For a variety of reasons, the
cover kept getting postponed. Finally, as the story goes, the editors set a date - February 18, 1952. Nothing could stop it. Except that which did. King George VI died and was succeeded on the throne by his daughter, Elizabeth II. So, the Life magazine issue ran with a picture of the young Queen Elizabeth on the cover and Kelly's drawing inside.

Out there where moose stroll the railroad tracks, we send birthday greetings to Adam.

The view from the top floor

So, on this trip, I get an upgrade to the "Club Level" of the hotel. The room is about a third larger and I have a love seat instead of a chair. But, we've been on daylight saving time for more than two weeks and the alarm clock is still on standard time. Being on the top floor, I spend more time in the elevator. One of the boxes has a very clunky ride, like the cog railroad going to the top of Mount Washington. There is a free breakfast buffet, so I eat better and the company doesn't have to pay for my meal expense.

Last night we went to dinner with several members of the team. The sales people on our project picked up the tab in celebration of the signing of a new contract. It was a nice night so we walked to and fro. On the way, we passed a new Wal-Mart being built on the ground floor of an office building (?!). (We're were just a couple blocks from one of the most high-priced malls in the area, with Brooks Brothers, Louis Vuitton, Nordstrom, and Tiffany.) Returning, the long-time employees brought us past a shoe store, above which was the original home of this division of the company. We genuflected appropriately and got home a bit after 11.

I heard In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida on the radio when I was driving here. Few people clean and sober will care much for this song, but it lives on in legend. The car radio isn't really the best source for this kind of sound. Speakers facing out of the windows of a college dorm room, volume turned up to 11, on a spring afternoon, young people face down in the mud - that's where this song belongs.

Love the Diversity of God's Creation. ... A Beautiful Rainbow - And the Lord Said His Creation was GOOD!
Sounds nice, doesn't it? Think again.

It's a reef dweller, so the Humuhumu-nukunuku-a-pua'a, Hawai‘i's soon-to-be official state fish, isn't likely to wind up in Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.

I knew a guy who was an Elvis impersonator. He headed off to Las Vegas and, by all accounts, is doing well. This news, then, is likely to be unsettling, that the person who owns the rights to the Elvis images is trying to get unauthorized Elvii out of the building.

If you're out and around on May 25th, you might want to wear a hat, probably made of tin foil.

Of friends and family

We had Easter dinner at Mike and Lynn's, a grand gathering and a great feast. Adam and Lily joined us. (Jennie had to work on her recertification exam.) We had lamb and ham and potatoes and salad and summer squash casserole and on and on. I lucked out (in many ways). While the last-minute preparations were underway, I got to hold Miss Cassie.

Late in the afternoon, we brought leftovers to my father. His friend, Ted, had come over for sauna. Ted's an interesting guy, a member of the ski troops in WWII, a working artist in Finland for nearly 20 years, a teacher of art at a local community college for another 20 or so, a Ph. D. in linguists or anthropology or somesuch, with a thesis on commonalities of Nordic languages, including the Inuit and Sami. Ted comes for sauna every three or four weeks and usually brings a load of firewood in payment.

After our brief visit, we went to the camp. Half up the hill on the camp road, we let Marley out of the car so that he can run. A short way up the road, we met a neighbor who was letting his new golden retriever, Max, run alongside the ATV. Sometimes Marley isn't the best behaved around other dogs, particularly males, but meeting was jolly. They charged around the woods and had a grand time. We went to the camp with our neighbor and the dogs continued with their play date.
As you might suspect, I read a lot of stuff from a lot of web sources. RSS makes it too easy to keep track of 100s of web sites. Most of the material I find is useful in one way or another. A lot of the news, however, focuses on the strange doings of celebrities. It's interesting for a while, but gets stale and then dreary.

Friend Tom cites Bill Russell when saying that the only thing that a performer owes his fans is the performance. It's a way of saying, "My life off-court is mine." It applies to performers in other fields as well. A few years ago, I listened to a reading of Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea, read by Charlton "If they want my gun, they'll have to rip it out of my cold, dead fingers." Heston. His reading was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

This comes up because there's a lot in the news these days about the off-screen, off-stage, or off-field behavior of many performers and celebrities. Take Tom Cruise. Please. Norman Mailer has been a mind-numbing loony and yet will write some of the best prose of his time. Shirley MacLaine, Robert Downey, Jr., Dennis Rodman, Ted Williams, Curt Schilling (Republican), Barbra Streisand - all are or have been loopy until the lights come on. Oh, and then, of course, is the King, Elvis, whose off-stage wackiness killed him, even as he brought his career around with one of the most stunning comebacks ever.

And so, it would be nice to step back from our celebrity obsession for a while so that we can focus on the serious problems of the world, such as two young women from Orkney who are afraid of ketchup.

Music and coffee for the ride to work

[Ed. note: with corrected Starbuck's link]

On the way to work yesterday morning, I heard East-West by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. It's probably been 30 years since I've heard it on the radio. The first time was late one night in 1968 as a new radio station in Boston (WBCN) was coming on the air. East-West remains one of my favorite tunes. I wore out my LP copy to the point that I was putting pennies on the arm of the turntable to keep the needle from skipping. That LP is long gone, replaced by a CD and then another. Ten years ago, the record company released a CD with three live versions of East-West. The sound is murky and the performances are sometimes uneven, but even when they're playing at less than their best, it's still a great band playing their best music.

My commute is quite manageable these days, certainly not like this guy's. On average, he drives 3 1/2 hours each way, each day, and has done so since 1989.

And for those 30 cups of coffee he drinks each day, he can step right into the coffee wars. Dunkin' Donuts is in the process of converting its shops to look more like Starbuck's.

William Sloane Coffin, former Yale chaplain and activist in the peace movement, died yesterday at his home in Vermont. My mother, not surprisingly, corresponded with him.

I had to stop at my doctor's office yesterday. As I left, I wondered why they would have a person with severe laryngitis answering the telephone. When I was talking with her, it was as though she standing out in the parking lot.

A week or so ago, Sandra and I received post cards inviting to a commemorative event for Ken Olsen and a new facility named in his honor at a local college. We're grateful for his brilliance and good work.

The good thing about HempPlus Toaster Waffles is that you don't need a Cinderella Waffle Iron. Hemp waffles? Some jokes just write themselves.

Two years in the back of the blogatorium

The first buds are appearing on the lilacs out back and the honeysuckle in front and the forsythia that isn't yellow is on its way to green. And the Red Sox won their home opener.

Yep, two years of this journal. 'Nuff said.

Work remains a full-time endeavor. We are starting interviews tomorrow to fill a couple of positions, an exciting prospect for a new team. I've been working on a problem that is moving as I would wish. I want to be able to map a set of customer requirements and design documents against a set of product features so that we can show that we're delivering what the customer wants. There are big and expense tools that would do this, but I'm trying to do it on the cheap and, ideally, presenting the information in graphical form. I've learned a lot about some nifty things - Perl, XML, UML - but I need to have something that I can show my boss and, ultimately, the customer.

In the Almost-A-Good-Idea Dept., a British doctor has suggested that it would be possible to create a drug that provides the euphoria of alcohol without the bad side effects such as violence, vomiting, amnesia, and liver failure. Here are two takes on the idea, one from a tabloid, the other from a science web site.

The lifespan of most software is usually quite brief. Many companies try to issue updates once or twice a year. Successful products can last quite a while, at least in computer years. Microsoft Word was released in the 80s. My favorite text editor, Emacs, was released in the 70s; I've been using it since 1981 on various systems. Most out-dated software is discarded, often for good reason. But, in our haste to discard what is old, we risk losing important understanding of how computing was done in the days of small processors, limited memory, and slow data storage.

So, there are initiatives underway to preserve software, to ensure that we can read the media years from now and to ensure that we will be able to run the programs. You can, for example, download a copy of Visicalc, the first piece of best-selling software and arguably the prime mover in the sales of PCs in the early 80s.

The Library of Congress, on another front, is selecting essential recorded material, mostly music, but some spoken word, to add to its preservation collections. This year's inductees range widely, from Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, and the Firesign Theater to the Modesto High School band. The full Registry list is here.

Happy Birthday, Woody.

Opening Day

Baseball returns to Boston today. We've had some anxiety about this team this year. So many new players on the team and several key people gone. (Johnny Damon is doing ok with that other team.) The Sox, however, have shown that they have some good stuff and that they'll give us a fun season. Oh, and did I mention that the Yankees are in last place?

This morning's Boston Globe had a couple of additional Sox items. The Olde Towne Team used the most smokeless tobacco (free registration may be required at the Globe site.) of any of the teams in the 2004 or 2005 World Series. And, there's a self-published kids' book by North Shore writer, Todd Balf, called, Manny Being Manny.

When people ask me how I'm doing, I always stumble a bit as I gauge how much I can say. Sometimes, I just don't know. It can be a bag of adjectives and anecdotes that make little or no sense (yet). I mumble something and change the subject. I'm not at the curmudgeonly level that lets my father say, "Who the hell knows?"

For many folks, "How are you doing?" is just a greeting, a different way of saying, "Hello." When asked how she was doing, a college friend would answer, "Yeah." Most people never noticed.

Cell phone technology, as the pundits have observed, can render location almost irrelevant. My boss needed to take a business trip on short notice, so we had our regularly scheduled one-on-one meeting via phone. I needed to speak with my doctor yesterday. He returned my call while I was standing in line at the grocery store check-out. I stepped out of line and had the conversation while next in the frozen food section.

If you have a choice about where you are when a fire breaks out, don't be here. (via)

I wouldn't think that you could find a way to do $100,000 worth of damage in a salvage yard, but five kids from Gardner figured out how to do it.

If you want to be a successful project manager at NASA, here are 100 things to remember, just for starters. Or, if you'd like to start with something simpler, you can become your own web host in 75 steps. Step 71, for example is:

Type "cat >r;>r; /usr/local/etc/apache2/httpd.conf". On the next line type "AddType application/x-httpd-php .php" and hit CTRL+D.

This Macintosh ad, in my opinion, was second only to the 1984 Super Bowl ad in power and effectiveness. In brief, it shows how much more documentation is required to use an IBM PC that with a Mac. The site has a link to the full series of ads, but the files are on the far end of a slow line, so you may not be able to get there.

Spring and all that it brings

Except in the shadiest of shady places, the ice and snow are gone. There are no leaves on the trees or bushes, so sunlight can get into places that will be blocked a few weeks from now. The sun is high and clear day can be very bright, indeed. At the camp, we noticed the first few bugs swirling in the sunlight.

My father's friend, Ted, took down a few maples trees that were posing a danger to his house. Ted's been bringing a VWful each time he comes for a visit in payment for a sauna. The ground around the wood that Ted had left is soft and uneven, so it was difficult for my father to load the wood onto the small trailer that he pulls with his garden tractor. Yesterday, he and I cleaned up the area. I filled the trailer and he drove it to his woodshed.

When we got home, I dozed off during the Red Sox game (even though it was a good game). Sandra worked in the yard. We have many nice flowers coming into bloom, thanks to her good works. And then it was time for me to finish the taxes. As I've mentioned before, most of the time comes from trying to locate the required bits of data; the calculations themselves aren't bad and take little time. One part of the tax software had me talking to myself (and to Sandra), but I was able to find an answer online, in the part of the company's web site where users write in to ask and answer questions. The forms and the accompanying payment are ready for signature and mailing; we'll wait a day or two before putting the envelopes in the mail.

From the Almost A Good Idea Dept. comes a coffee maker for your car. My fellow travelers certainly need one more distraction for their ride to work in the morning. This site, as with most traffic simulators, doesn't take into account the somewhat unique behaviors of Massachusetts drivers. There was a study at either Harvard or M.I.T. about 10 years ago. The researchers were stunned when an ambulance would be dispatched to a busy highway. The other drivers would deliberately get in front of the ambulance, using its lights and sounds as a way to clear a path through traffic.

If you find me with a sucking chest wound, it's ok to call 911 instead of looking up treatment procedures on my Blackberry. By the way, Sucking Chest Wound would be a great name for a rock band, except that it's already been used.

Yesterday's New York Times carried a wedding announcement for a couple married by a Universal Life Church minister. I'm assuming that it's the same ULC that guys tried to use in the 60s to obtain a draft deferrent because they were clergy. Anyone can be a ULC minister, just for the asking.

Words and then some

The headline on the top of the front page of yesterday's Boston Globe said - Red Sox Hammer Orioles Pitching in 14-8 Victory. Guys, the Red Sox pitchers gave up eight runs. That's not a way to make the case that the other team's pitching stunk, even if Baltimore gave out more bases-on-balls than the Easter Bunny gives out eggs . Last night Curt Schilling threw a brilliant game and the Sox won 2-1.

We made a quick trip to the Cape yesterday with Sandra's parents to Scott, Val, and Russell's house. Along the way we passed signs urging us to vote Blank for Town Moderator. The occasion was the celebration of Woody's birthday, which we'll celebrate on the official date later this week. It was cloudy and cool all day. Sleet mixed in with the heavy rain from Franklin down to about Taunton.

We had a wonderful gathering and feast. Scott cooked meats from various animals on the grill in the garage. Others brought salads and cakes and pie, oh, my. Val is due to deliver twins in a few weeks, so we had good fun speculating about names. Sandra had researched names of twins in their family's lineage; the list sparked a whole new line of discussion.

On the way home, Sandra and her mother sang in delightful harmony. They sang rounds, old hymns, a couple of Christmas carols, several songs that shared the lyrics "dee-dee-dum-deedly-dee," and the jingle from the Ipana toothpaste commercials. It was fine and fun music.

A few notes on language:

• Can someone please tell me why the word 'kidney' shows up when I search thesaurus.com for the synonyms of the word 'description'?
  
  "Yes, ma'am. We will catch the perpetrator. Now, can you give me a kidney?"
  
  
• Words get hijacked often, taken from their original context and used in new and often incorrect (and even ironic) ways. Factoid, for example, was a word coined by Norman Mailer to describe the facts that he made up when writing a biography of Marilyn Monroe and used extensively in The Executioner's Song. Mailer himself described a factoid as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper". [1] Factoid is almost always used now to describe a tidbit of news. The speaker or writer is typically unaware that a factoid is something that isn't true, but was made up to make the narrative flow better.
• Meanwhile, we read that Air France is trialing cell phones in flight. (Google found more that 600,000 occurrences of that word.)
• The New York Times has an article (free registration required) about the new words that we've needed to describe the technologies and activities of current-day work.
  

Would you want your chiropractor to treat you by going back to the time when your injury occurred or by treating you telepathically? Me, neither.

There is a video of Yoko Ono on stage while audience members came up and cut off pieces of her clothing with scissors. I watched so you don't have to.

Our tax dollars at work. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has a kids' web page where the young'uns can learn what they need to know about trademark law. There are age-appropriate activities, such as a trip to the USPTO museum.

Sandra and her mother were wondering if there were any hymns specific to Palm Sunday. The Pope might know and he might even be listening to them on his iPod.