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/